


don't ruin this on me.

by milominderbinder



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Developing Relationship, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, Sex Magic, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, somehow slow burn even though they're fucking the whole time?, the mosaic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-02-28 16:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 112,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18759901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milominderbinder/pseuds/milominderbinder
Summary: The beauty of all life can mean a lot of things.  In this world, Quentin and Eliot stumble across the mosaic’s solution two years in, and are sent back to the present to find the rest of the keys with their friends.The only problem is, in those two years, Quentin and Eliot have started sleeping together, and also fallen madly in love — but neither will admit it.  As they try to keep hooking up, hide it from their friends, hide their real feelings from each other,andfinish the Keys Quest to bring back magic, the events of season 3 are in for some very big changes.





	1. not with a whimper, but with a bang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've always liked considering what else could have been 'the beauty of all life' for the mosaic, and while ofc we all LOVE and STAN that episode exactly as it went down, it's fun to play with au versions too! for the purposes of this fic, my brain basically went, 'hey, what if everything, always, came down to quentin and eliot banging? but they were also way too repressed to talk about their emotions even tho they bOTH ARE IN LOVE??' so this is. that. also i wanted to rewatch season 3 and here we are
> 
> the logic of this entire fic is 'things happen when i want them to and don't happen if i don't want them to!'. so while it will have show-typical references to shitty things like depression and suicide monsters and forced marriages to teenagers, a lot of the nastiness is also removed to make room for plots i, as supreme overlord of my google doc, review to be 'more fun!' and 'easier for me to make q and eliot cuddle and/or bang about!'

_At the hour when we are_  
_Trembling with tenderness_  
_Lips that would kiss_  
_Form prayers to broken stone._

_––T.S. Eliot_

* * *

So this is the way it ends.  Not with a whimper, but kind of, technically, with a bang.  And a: “Ah, _ah,_ Quentin, _Quentin,”_ and an, “Oh _god_ El I’m gonna –– El, El, I’m gonna ––”; and Eliot burying his face in Quentin’s neck, sucking frantically at his sweaty skin, and slapping one bracing hand down on the mosaic underneath them.

At first, when they first started doing _this_ to burn off some of the restless tension and madness that repeating the same hopeless task every single day was driving them to, Quentin had been _very_ insistent about not doing anything sexual near the tiles.  Fillory was a weird place, rather obsessed with sex while also being incredibly obsessed with traditional marriage and fidelity of all sorts, and who _knew_ what reaction it’d have to two dudes from another world, one of whom was technically married to a woman in a traditionally supposed-to-be-monogamous-until-and-after-death Fillorian way, boning on top of its sacred mosaic.

Quentin had insisted and Eliot had agreed: it wasn’t worth the risk.  After about six months of _this_ , though –– of the sex, of carefully avoided conversations and the way they were both oh-so-casually constantly handwaving it like it was just a natural facet of their friendship, and like maybe each time it happened would be the _last_ time it ever happened and that would be no big deal, but of also never managing to go more than two or three days before one of them would frustrate the other on purpose, or pick an argument and then interrupt it with a kiss, or pour a little more wine than usual in the evening and use it as an excuse to crawl into the other’s lap, or –– well, after six months or so of all that, fucking on the mosaic had stopped seeming like much of a big deal.  Sometimes, the thirty seconds it would take to get inside to a bed just seems insurmountable.

Such is sex with Quentin, Eliot thinks, as he bites the crook of Quentin’s shoulder and shoves deep inside him, feeling a dizzying orgasm beginning to crest in the pit of his stomach.  Eliot, who’s fucked more guys than he could reasonably count, in all manner of magical and kinky ways, has _never_ wanted it so bad as he does with Q.

He really can’t explain it.  By all accounts, everything they do together is pretty fucking vanilla.  Like, sometimes Q likes Eliot to boss him around a little bit in bed, and there’s some hair pulling, and he’s been slowly trying to teach Q about edging, but it’s _hardly_ the three-day orgies of spine-tingling sex magic and exotic narcotics and a dozen strangers’ dicks that Eliot’s always considered his best sexual experiences before.  There’s no logic to explain why he’s more desperate for Quentin’s sloppy blowjobs and clumsy fucks than he has been for anything else in his whole life.

Except, he thinks ––

Except ––

Except that thing he doesn’t think about, and he’s _right_ on the brink now, and he can’t help it, that he says it into Quentin’s shoulder, the words muffled against his skin, and his brain is short circuiting so in that moment he can’t even think to hope that Q’s not heard it, that it’s drowned out by their groans and the sounds of sex –– but right into Q’s skin, Eliot stammers, “Fuck, I _love you,”_ just as he comes.

And then Quentin says, “ _Ah!”,_ and his whole body goes tense, head snapping back until El presses the sloppiest of kisses against the side of his mouth, and Quentin comes, too.

And.  Then.

They both collapse down onto the mosaic.

There’s always so much tension in the air when they fuck, and it always seems to instantly disappear when they’re done.  Eliot feels _light,_ dizzy as all hell, pressing a few weak kisses into Q’s shoulders before pulling out of him and rolling onto his back, the cool tiles a nice contrast against his skin from the sticky summer air, overly warm even after dark.

Eliot is all sensation, right then; no words, not even in his mind. He barely remembers that he’d said anything before coming.  He’s actually so dazed from the monumental fuck that he doesn’t even notice for a few minutes that he’s not getting his usual post-coital cuddle from Quentin.

Eventually, though, he _does_ notice the left side of his body isn’t comfortably overheating from being clung to by a human-octopus-hybrid, and that just won't do.  Eliot blinks his eyes open, the effort seeming Herculean and certainly something he thinks he should be rewarded for, and he finds Q kind of propped up on his elbows next to him, body still delightfully flushed-red and sweaty, chest still heaving, but with an expression on this face that Eliot doesn’t usually like to see on someone he just fucked the brains out.  Q actually looks a little _horrified._

“Oh, _shit,”_ Quentin says, through a rough, breathless voice.  Eliot would ask what’s wrong, but he’s still feeling a bit like his brain just shot out of his dick and he’ll never be able to form words again.  Quentin may be feeling the same if the way he stammers is any indication, words sticking in his hoarse throat even as he weakly slaps Eliot’s chest. “El, I –– uh, I, uh, _mmm,_ said I wouldn’t ––”

What he’s trying to say, Eliot realises as he forces his head up, is that he’s come all over the mosaic.

With the remarkable amount of fucking they’ve done in the past year-and-a-bit, it’s actually probably impressive that this is the first time that’s happened.  Because while Quentin had given in to sex-on-the-mosaic as a concept after six months of becoming increasingly frantic for each other, they’ve always made sure someone’s like, coming into a mouth or an ass or their jeans rather than _actually_ dead on the god-enchanted tiles which are supposed to represent the ultimate beauty of the universe.  Again: Fillory is weird about stuff like that. It always seemed better not to risk it.

“Oh,” El says, still rather dazed, and weakly pets at Quentin’s hair, mostly just trying to tug him down for a snuggle.  Eliot’s never shy with physical affection with people he even is platonically friends with, but while he and Q are still pretending all _this_ is just friendship, right after sex is the only time El actually gets to drape all over and cuddle him the way he wants.  They carefully separate that sort of thing out when they’re not fucking, and Eliot’s certainly not going to waste this precious post-coital glow just because of a bit of wayward spunk.  “Don’worry, baby Q, I’m a master at getting jizz out of important things. We’ll clean it up later.  Just, c’mere.”

But Quentin shoves away Eliot’s grabbing hands, not even looking at him.  Eliot takes _that_ as a bit of a personal offence, and finally regains enough strength to push himself indignantly up onto his elbows, wondering what the fuck could be more important to Quentin than curling up in the tender embrace of Eliot’s manly arms after a good hour of the most expert sex of Q’s life.

Roughly one second later, Eliot forgives him for that.

Because ––

“El.  Are you.  Do you see that?”

“It’s kind of hard to _miss.”_

In two years and three months at this fucking task, they’ve never once seen anything change.  They’ve made nearly two thousand patterns. They’ve attacked it with magic, math, and emotion.  They’ve poured their hearts and souls and creativity into it, and at the end of every pattern, a grand total of _nothing_ has happened.  The whole reason they were fucking tonight was because they’d spent all day working out a beautiful fractal fibonacci pattern, and it hadn’t done anything, and they were so freaking frustrated that they’d needed to scream their heads off one way or another.

So it’s hard to miss the fact that all of a sudden, one of the familiar, infuriating mosaic tiles is _glowing gold._

It happens to be the tile Quentin just came all over.  Eliot is one hundred percent sure that is maybe probably relevant.

“Q ––” he says, voice weak, but that’s all he can get out.  All he can get out, and apparently Quentin’s lost for words too, because they are both absolutely fucking silent, both half-sat, stark naked, sweat cooling on their skin and only sounds of the forest at dusk surrounding them, as they _watch._

The tile glows gold, and then it slowly, oh so slowly, sinks down into the earth below, leaving a hole in their pattern.

And then, in its place, half submerged in the dirt, is a key.

A key.

Two years and three months of nothing but this, nothing but them, in this tiny hut, living like Fillorian peasants, tending their little vegetable garden and shitting in an outhouse and trading magic in the local town for jars of honey and telling each other ridiculous stories until they ran out of imagination and began confessing their pasts and darkest secrets just to keep entertained; two years and three months of contorting their brains and delving into the depths of their souls to try and figure out this puzzle, scraping their hearts raw as they shared vulnerable little ideas of what they considered maybe the most beautiful things about life; two years and three months of drinking terrible Fillorian wine and changing the boundaries of their friendship and growing secret feelings and not talking about some things but talking about _everything_ else until they knew each other inside out, leaning each other’s habits through the necessity of having no space, driving each other crazy, fighting, fucking, laughing, kissing, crying, comforting, repeating to each other more than once that _insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,_ but still doing it.

Two years, and three months, and now there’s a key.

“Quentin,” Eliot breathes.

Quentin reaches out, with trembling fingers, like he thinks the thing might disappear before he can grab it.

It doesn’t.  Quentin curls his fist around the key, and it’s just like that.  They _have it._ It’s the middle of the night and they’re naked under the stars and they hadn’t even been _trying_ but Quentin suddenly has the key and it’s ––

The whole quest comes rushing back, all at once, and Eliot only realises in that moment that he’d sort of _forgotten._ Not forgotten the quest was going on at all, but forgotten, at least, that there was more to it than this.  That their life’s purpose wasn’t finding _just this key,_ but finding all of them, bringing magic back to another world and another time.

“Quentin ––” El says again, because Quentin seems to have gone mute.  And then, suddenly louder and struck with a lightning-bolt surge of adrenaline and disbelief and pure glee like he’s never known it, Eliot leaps up and grabs Q’s hand and laughs and screams, “ _Quentin!”_

That’s when Quentin breaks.  His face splits into one of those gorgeous puppy-dog smiles, and he lets out a loud noise which can’t reasonably be called a word but more of an inhuman shriek of syllables, and he flings himself into Eliot’s arms.

Better than a post-coital cuddle, El thinks, as they jump up and down with their bodies pressed together and their laughs intermingling and the metal of the key crushed cold against his back by Quentin’s hand.

 

 

* * *

 

“So, game plan.   Should we just — I mean, do we leave right _now_?”

After a while of screeching at each other and a frankly searing celebratory kiss, Eliot’s a tiny bit calmer, and they’ve both recovered enough to at least pull their clothes back on.  At this point they’re both still stubbornly clinging to the now well-worn jeans they’d arrived in from earth, and Eliot has his designer boots even if he mostly lives barefoot, but they both have a few different Fillorian shirts, since their other ones gave up the ghost months ago.  The nearest town is still a good couple hours’ walk away and only has the simplest of garments available at their market, but Eliot thinks he’s still pulling off an approximation of his usual ensemble with a burnt-orange Fillorian buttondown instead of his own.

Quentin would never wear a wrap-tied tunic on earth in a million years, but he still makes it look very cute, El thinks, as he watches Quentin do up the string.  He’s fumbling a little, considering one of his fists is still clenched right around the key like he’s expecting it to disappear if he breaks his hold for a single second.

“I mean –– I guess?” Quentin says, scraping a loose strand of hair behind his ear and shrugging.  The strange tone of his voice feels a lot like the reluctance Eliot himself is currently experiencing.  Sitting on their little sofa-bench beside the mosaic, Eliot ties the laces of his boot with a sharp tug, and tries not to think about how final all this feels.

It’s not that he doesn’t miss their friends, and running water, and personal space, and internet porn, and his waistcoat collection, and food he didn’t have to grow himself.  He absolutely does, all that and more. He just — he really hadn’t expected how much this place has come to feel like home.

“Well, maybe we could wait until the morning,” he tries cautiously, not thinking too hard on his own reasoning for fear he’ll find something he doesn’t want to know.  “Pack things up, sort the house out, get some sleep so we appear back on earth dazzling and well rested?”

Quentin looks tempted for a moment, but then sighs, his brow furrowing as he comes to sit next to El and tie up his weird Fillorian sandals.

“Yeah, I just, uh, I just never know, with the keys.  It gave us, what, ten seconds to get through the door when we came here?  I don’t know if we should risk waiting and missing our chance to get back.  If it even _will_ take us back.”

Eliot’s stomach sinks, but he nods, swallowing around his feelings like he’s so good at doing. “Yeah—“

“I just —“

“No, no, you’re right.  As usual, when it comes to all things Fillory.  Come on, let’s — grab only the most portable of our possessions, and try the key right now.”

Q looks a little guilty, and one of his hands flits towards El, brushing over his knee before pulling back in an aborted little motion.  They’re back to this, then. It seems to be their pattern: they get either frustrated or happy enough to fuck, and they cuddle up together afterwards with all the affection of lovers, and then as soon as they get up, they don’t know how to touch.  They’re still more affectionate than they were before this all began, Eliot thinks, but not quite enough to ever confuse themselves that they’re _together_.

Now is most definitely not the time to be thinking about that messy cluster of emotion, though.  Eliot tugs Quentin up by the hand, like he’s trying to prove to himself that he can do that without making it weird, in towards their little hut, to pack.

The inside of the hut is nothing special, but it’s miles from what it looked like when they first got here.  Fresh flowers sit next to a bowl of peaches on the little wooden counter, and the shelves are bursting with jars of preserves and loaves of bread and their own harvested vegetables.  Purple curtains cover what used to be a weathered shutter in the windows. There are two beds, just palettes with scratchy sheets pushed against either wall, even though they usually end up curling into the same one these days.  Embers are still smouldering in the little fireplace, where Eliot had cooked lunch earlier as Quentin restacked the tiles from another failed pattern, occasionally calling mordant comments to El through the open door.

 _Home_ , Eliot thinks, and his chest aches as he gathers up his couple of spare shirts, and the most appealing selection of their food.  He’s assuming the key will plant them back in the Physical Kids cottage now that they’ve completed this leg of the quest, but like Quentin had said, you never know with these keys.  It would be dumb to end up starving to death in the wilderness because he thought they’d able to get more peaches on earth.

Quentin acquired a battered leather satchel at the market a few months ago, almost identical to the one he used to wear on earth.  It always makes El’s heart ache fondly to see him wearing it. Eliot shoves all his own possessions into that, and Q adds the small bundle of odd Fillorian novels he’d got into reading, and his notebook with all the mosaic patterns scribbled in it, and the first key, the one that got them here, is already tucked safely into a pocket of the bag, and that’s —

It.

The summation of two years and three months in their lives.

Not totally, of course. They can’t bring with them the furniture they bartered for, the trees they planted, the colourful eaves they put onto the hut.  There is, though —

“I guess that’s it,” Q says, looking fitfully around the room.  Eliot clears his throat, walks outside, and carefully folds up the patchwork quilt on top of their sofa-bench, the one they’d made themselves out of scraps of fabric the same colour as the mosaic tiles, as if it just couldn’t leave their minds even in quiet moments, as if they wanted the quest close even when they slept.

“Might bring this too,” he says, begging his voice to sound as blasé as ever.  He is _not_ , he assures himself, bringing the quilt because it’s what he and Quentin first kissed on top of, first fucked on too, have curled up beneath countless times on the nights they shared a bed. He’s just bringing it because it’s the perfect level of soft, and one can never have too many blankets.  “On the off chance the key drops us off in the middle of the fucking Arctic and we need to huddle for warmth, of course.”

Quentin’s eyes go soft watching him from the doorway, and he reaches to El.

So often, Quentin is the one to move first in times like this; he always was the brave one.  Eliot goes to him, blanket carefully folded in his arms, and is surprised when Quentin reels him in for a soft kiss.  It’s not that they haven’t shared plenty of kisses like that before. It’s just that they’ve usually always been a precursor to fucking.  Or a part of fucking, during the times that it’s slow and gentle and has a lot of eye contact and Eliot would murder anyone on the spot who dared call it _making love,_ but, like, it kind of is.  Sometimes El sneaks kisses onto Quentin’s forehead or cheeks in the same casual way he would do with Margo, but they don’t really kiss, _actually_ kiss, when it’s not about sex.

Until now.  Eliot loses himself in the soft press of Quentin’s mouth, bending down to meet him, curling one hand around Q’s neck and into the strands of his little ponytail, feeling Quentin’s hot breath against his face.  He tries very, very hard not to feel like they’re about to go back to their old lives, and this is a goodbye to this part of their relationship.

Q pulls away too quickly for it to be a goodbye, though — or at least, Eliot tells himself that.  Then Quentin sighs and glances around one more time, at the mosaic and all the emblems of their life there, one hand adjusting his ponytail where Eliot had messed it up, the other still clinging onto the key.

“Right.  I guess we should, uh, try and use this key, then.”

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees, swallowing and looking away from Quentin.  He takes a deep breath, and forces himself to be very, very cool with all of this, the same way he’s been cool with emotional upheavals he didn’t really want his whole life.  “Maybe we can come back here, if we ever get to Fillory-of-the-future again. See if the hut’s still standing. And if my gorgeous decorating choices have been totally pillaged by then.  I feel like nobody ever appreciated me Queer Eye-ing this place up enough; I really am the Bobby Berk of Fillory-of-the-past.”

Quentin laughs, which was the goal, and things feel a tiny bit lighter as they step outside and close the hut’s door.  These keys, apparently, work best when you give them an existing doorway to work with. So Quentin holds out their newly acquired key and seems to focus real hard, and before they know it, a discordantly gold keyhole is appearing on the hut’s weathered wooden door.  Today, at least, it seems magic and the keys want to be on their side.

As they step into the blinding light of the portal together, Eliot doesn’t spare a glance over his shoulder, doesn’t look back.  If he doesn’t look, he thinks he can pretend he’s not saying goodbye to yet another home.

 

* * *

 

––and arriving back in another.

 

* * *

 

They step out of the clock in the Physical Kids Cottage.

Quentin feels a little bit like his entire mind is unravelling.  He looks around, a near frantic edge to it; everything looks the same as he remembers, but it’s not like he has a photographic memory or anything.  They could have been delivered back to right when they left, or the week before, or fifty years _after_ and the cottage has just been abandoned since then so nothing’s moved.  How is he supposed to know?

Quentin swallows, looks up at Eliot, whose own face is showing a complicated cavalcade of emotional vulnerability.  Quentin’s hand aches with the urge to touch him, comfort him, but he shoves it reprimandingly into his pocket instead.  He's never sure whether Eliot wants to be touched, comforted at all, especially not by Quentin, at times like this.  El puts up such a strong mask, always; it seems uncharitable to even show that someone's noticed he broke it.

“Do you think this is, like, right when we left?” Quentin looks at the clock, still actually a functioning timepiece as well as a portal between worlds, despite all the odds, but his mind is blank.  “I seriously can’t remember what time of day it was when we -- y’know, zipped out of here.”

“It was two years ago,” Eliot soothes him, stroking a hand across the back of Quentin’s hair for a second.  Quentin pushes into the touch like a cat, barely stifling the soft noise of pleasure in his throat, but Eliot quickly pulls back before Quentin can really enjoy it.  When he glances up, another complicated emotion is being wiped off Eliot’s face. “I barely remember the _month_.  I doubt anyone could blame us for not checking the time.”

He has a point.  Quentin reluctantly pulls out of Eliot’s hold to dump their bag down, and plods around the room a tiny bit, poking at a ball on the pool table.  It doesn’t seem to be dusty, so he assumes it hasn’t been _years_ since anyone was here, but that’s really all they have to ––

Just then, the front door swings open, and Alice and Julia come marching through.

Seeing Alice’s face is –– startling, to say the least.  It assuages his fears about what time they might have landed in, since she looks exactly the same as she did they day they left, but it also throws Quentin right into a muddle of memories that he spent the last two years carefully organising and packing away.

Mostly, he thinks, as he stares at her, he’s surprised to realise just how _little_ he’s thought about Alice lately.  He spent maybe three-quarters of the first year at the mosaic getting over her, working through all his hideously complex emotions, both in his own mind and aloud with Eliot when he’d had a bit too much wine.  But as much as it had been painful, and as much as Quentin had fully given in to his natural disposition to endlessly mope and pine for whoever the unfortunate object of his affections is at that particular moment, he _had_ gotten over her.  Like, for real. For most of the second year, he’d been wrapped up in an intoxicating mixture of _quest_ and _magic_ and _Eliot,_ and Alice had been firmly shuffled off to the back of his mind as something only from the past.

It doesn’t hurt to look at her now, not the way it had last time he lay eyes on her –– two years for him, maybe just a few hours for her.  He mostly just feels settled, and a little ambivalent, now that he’s weighed up both the extreme good and _extreme_ bad of their relationship, called it pretty much a zero sum game, and begun to look forward for more rewarding things.

It’s actually very encouraging, to Quentin, to realise that he can look at her now without any of his old infatuation flooding back.  He really is done with that part of his life. He thinks they’ll both be better off for him letting it go.

Of course, Alice _hasn’t_ had the benefit of years.  It’s still the same day for her as it was when she told him things were _just weird, now._ The second she spots him, she makes a repressed little noise in her throat, and immediately marches up the stairs.  

Quentin doesn’t mind.  He’s sure he’ll have a chance to talk things through with Alice at some point, but for now he’s more concerned with Julia, who’d filed through the door behind Alice, and looks utterly out of sorts.  Quentin’s entire heart is overwhelmed with love for his oldest friend, his _best_ friend, who he hasn’t seen in two years; who traded crayons with him as kids and told off his bullies in middle school and made up dumb dance routines with him in her bedroom on Saturday nights in high school and came to visit him every day the first time he was in hospital and was the first person to get him drunk and then held back his hair when he puked and came with him to all his school interviews just in case he needed support; who he thought he might never see again.

Quentin rushes over and wraps her in a huge hug, trying to pour all of his love for her into the tightness of the embrace.  She startles like she maybe didn’t even spot him in the room until then, and Quentin pulls back after a moment, settling a restless hand on her shoulder, when he realises she’s just sort of frozen against him.

“Jules?” he checks, suddenly anxious, as she stares at him.  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I ––” Her voice sticks in her throat, and she clears her throat in the prim, familiar way she always does when she’s trying to pull herself together.  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“That’s okay,” Quentin assures her.  How many times has she just sat with him in silence when he didn’t want to talk; how many times has she done ridiculous things just to distract him from woes he wouldn’t even say aloud?  An idea quickly takes form in his mind. “Hey, what are you doing right now? Because we’re ––” He glances over his shoulder at Eliot, checking –– “Trying to get to Whitespire. The key seems to work in the clock to make portals now, uh, somewhat unpredictably, but, yanno, it's the closest thing we've got to a Fillorian uber these days.  Will you come with us?”

Julia blinks at him, looking uncertain.  Quentin thinks the last time she was in Fillory was maybe when she was still shadeless and she burned down that forest, but he could be wrong.  He’s lost track of what happened back then, but regardless, he doesn’t want to leave her alone if something’s troubling her, and he knows all too well what it’s like to need a break from this world.

“Okay,” she says, her voice mostly distant.  He’s not fully convinced she knows what she just agreed to, but he’s encouraged by the fact that a moment later, she reaches out to pluck at his Fillorian tunic.  “Shit, though, what are you wearing, Q?  This isn’t really _you._ ”

Quentin laughs, and the laugh turns a little wet halfway through.  He pulls Julia into another hug. “It’s, uh –– god, Jules, I have a lot to explain.  It’s been so long since I saw you. Not for you, I know, but for me, and –– well, come on, I can tell you when we’re there.  You really do look like you could use a break.”

“I really could,” Julia admits.

 

* * *

  

Quentin and Eliot take very quick showers.  Separately.  Quentin wishes they weren’t separate, but he tries to not think about that in the shower, because he knows it’ll just create a problem that he doesn’t have time to pause and deal with right now, no matter how good the hot water beating down on his skin feels after two years of bathing with river water in a metal tub.  Quentin changes into some fresh clothes –– _jeans without holes in_ has never like such a luxury in his fucking life, and shedding the Fillorian shirt for one of his comfortable hoodies very nearly makes him cry, the overwhelming mixture of comfort and relief and being home combined with the confusing loss of the life he’d just begun to adapt to and the calmer, simpler person he thought he was starting to become.

He doesn’t linger on that too long, either.  Within half an hour, he and Eliot and Julia are back around the clock, a few possessions each in tow, and trying the key.

The keys and the clock really _do_ seem to like each other.  Just as before, a keyhole appears when they think hard enough about it, and Quentin slots the key into it to find a blinding white light filling the inside.  Another portal.

Julia steps into it without hesitation.  Quentin and Eliot share a glance, halfway terrified and halfway eager, and it feels to Quentin a little bit like a thousand words pass between them in that look.  That’s something you get good at, too, spending all your days with the same person –– speaking without words, knowing what they’re thinking, what’s passing behind their eyes with just a shadow of expression.  Quentin’s heart clenches, but there’s too much going on, new quests and fairies in Fillory and a troubled Julia and Margo still about to get married, for him to spare a second digging into his emotions. Emotions he probably shouldn’t even be having.

Still.  Unconsciously, Quentin and Eliot’s hands link together the moment before they step through the portal after Julia.  And the portal, this time ––

Takes them right into Whitespire, at the right time.

 

* * *

 

Well.  Actually.  Not quite the right time.  Actually, just a couple minutes too late.  Because while they’ve arrived on Margo’s wedding day, and in the familiar walls of the castle, which is everything they _did_ technically want, it’s still not enough.  

They arrive just at the right time to see Tick pronounce a blood-splattered Margo and some chipmunk faced adolescent _lawfully wed._

 

* * *

  

Margo nearly falls into Eliot’s arms as soon as the wedding party has dispersed.  

“You _dick,”_ she says, although she doesn’t really sound mad at him, more just mortally terrified.  “Where were you? They made me get fucking _married,_ Eliot.  And did you see the kid?  If he has more than two fucking pubes yet I’ll fuck a centaur!”

“Now, now, no centaur fucking for you, you're a married lady,” Eliot says, but the joke is weak and falls flat as he pats at her hair.  “I’m sorry, Bambi, I tried to get here. We’ll figure it out, don’t worry.”

Which has led to –– this.  Quentin has Julia, who looks desperately like she needs a bed to curl up in and someone to stay at her side, and Margo, who desperately needs help _not_ going to her own bed and avoiding the person who would like to be there with her.  

So, for the first time in two years and three months, Quentin and Eliot seem to have separate quests.

The parting moment is strange and small.  Eliot wishes they could have a minute just the two of them, to say _something,_ but then he’s not even sure what he’d say.  They’re in the castle together, still; it’s hardly like some grand goodbye.  But for the past couple of years, they furthest they’ve been apart is when one of them took a trip to the local village for half a day.  Mostly, they haven’t left each other’s sides or sight in all that time, and certainly haven’t had their other best friends with them to talk to, confide in, help.  Separating now feels unnatural, like one of Eliot’s arms has detached itself and gone off with a new body.

But it’s necessary.  Eliot can’t do much more than stroke Quentin’s hair for a brief moment, wondering if he’s imagining the way Quentin’s eyes flutter shut for a moment, the way he seems to lean into the touch, and say, “Meet you for breakfast tomorrow?”

And then Quentin’s off, to show Julia to her chambers and talk to her, and Eliot is left with Margo.  His Bambi, who has _has_ missed more than life itself, and who he does feel woefully guilty for wanting to ditch right now and trail after his little puppy of a not-boyfriend.

“Bambi, we have _much_ to catch up on,” Eliot says, as he drags her into another hug, half for her and half for himself.  “My room? Now? I think I have enough wine in there to last us the night.”

Unfortunately, the murderous little gopher from the wedding chooses that moment to pop up behind Margo.

“My bride,” he says, his voice squeaking and breaking in a way which makes Eliot want to nap for a thousand years just so he doesn’t have to deal with this nonsense, “The reception is over.  I made sure _every_ guest has gone myself, just like you said.  I believe it is now time for us to, um, _consummate_ our union _._ Let's hurry!”

Margo looks exactly as queasy at the thought of that as Eliot feels, and he can tell she’s rearing up to yell something which will probably start yet _another_ war between kingdoms.  While he doesn’t doubt the situation deserves it, he’s also had enough of wars to last a lifetime, and he can’t get engaged to anyone else to get out of this one, so he quickly throws an arm out in front of Bambi and answers the kid himself.

“Fomar, yes?  Listen, I don’t know how the –– uh, the _Floaters_ do it, but you seem frightfully misguided.  See, on _earth_ , it’s tradition for the bride to spend her wedding night with her family.  Hearing their wisdom, talking about the road ahead, et cetera.  Your marriage would be simply doomed without it.  And since I’m Queen Margo’s family here, I’ll be taking her off for the night, now.” Then, when Fomar looks ready to complain, Eliot rears up to his full height and adds flippantly, “Also, I’m High King.  If you don’t do what I say, I’ll cut off your dick and feed it to the sloth on my council. She’s _savage.”_

Fomar goes kind of green, and scurries off silently towards the wedding chambers.  Ah, Eliot thinks, adolescent boys; always so easy to threaten. You just have to bring up their dicks and they cower before you.

“I appreciate your big dick energy as always, El, but I could have dealt with that little rotten nutsack myself,” Margo grumbles.

“With _out_ declaring war on his entire kingdom and getting us slaughtered by the fairies while you’re at it?” Eliot asks.  Margo is silent. Yeah, he thought as much.

After that, it’s just a matter of steering them both to Eliot’s chambers, and pouring a couple of generous glasses of wine.  Margo chugs her in one go, and Eliot follows her lead, filling them both up again before he kicks off his shoes and sort of –– collapses, inside.

He’s been running on adrenaline for however-the-fuck-long it’s been since he and Q fucked on the mosaic and found that key.  Reasonably that’s probably only five or six hours ago, but it feels like a lifetime, and it really has been two worlds since then; Eliot is _exhausted,_ and an unwelcome barrage of emotions are rising up faster than the wine he’s chugging can stop them.  He collapses down to sit on his expansive bed next to Margo, wrapping an arm around her and resting his cheek on the top of her head.

It’s so good to see her.  Really. No matter what other shit is going on.  He’s recalled her face so many times in his mind over the last two years, but there would always be tiny details he’d miss.  He thinks of her as taller, always, than she actually is; he can never mentally recreate the complex vortex behind her eyes. As many complex worlds of emotion as Quentin inspires in him lately, nothing will ever eclipse the love he has for this small, savage woman right next to him.

“Fuck, Bambi, I’m so fucking sorry.  I really tried to get here in time, but the key took us on an unavoidable detour of Odysseyic proportions,” he tells her, and sighs against her hair.

“It’s not your fault the fairy queen gets off on ruining my life in a fusillade of creative ways,” Margo says.  And, well, Eliot kind of agrees, since technically she was the one who brought the fairies to them in the first place, but he’s not mad about that anymore, and it doesn’t change the fact that Margo didn’t deserve _this._ “But, to be clear, I will _not_ be fucking that greasy haired little Lannister-wannabe.”

“Of course, Bambi,” he coos, stroking her hair.  He’s gotten used to stroking Quentin’s hair like this, the last couple of years, but it’s nice to do it to Margo as well, even if he’s less likely to get a blowjob for the gesture.  “We’ll come up with a way to get it annulled. Or just cut his balls off if it comes to that.”

At that point, it’s time for another glass of wine each, and then Margo starts taking off her blood-splattered wedding gown.  It’s complex to undo, but as she finally steps out of it, she says, “So, tell me about this fucking detour of yours, then.” Then she goes for more wine and looks Eliot up and down, eyebrows raised.  “Because honey, you know I love to judge any time, but even a saint would say something about your hair right now.  It was _not_ this long last time I saw you.  And what’s with that tragic excuse for a shirt?”

Right, Eliot thinks; Quentin had changed back into earth clothes the first second he could, but Eliot had put his same outfit back on right when he was done showering.  His own pants, but the burnt-orange shirt made from rough Fillorian fabric which couldn't reasonably be compared to cotton, let alone his preferred silk.  He can’t really explain why he didn't dive into the comfort of his own wardrobe, except that every part of his mind feels incredibly shaken and he’s trying not to make any more big changes than he has to.

And so, because he’s never good at beating around the bush when it’s _Margo,_ Eliot tells her.

“Well, it was a real fucker of a quest.  I know it's only been a few days for you, but ––" Eliot feels nearly hysterical now, as he forces himself to say it aloud, for the first time to somebody who hadn't lived it; "Me and Q have actually been gone two years, Bambi."

"Wait –– _what?_ " 

Eliot nods, swallows, tries not to let on just how weird he feels about it too.  "The key did some time-meddling bullshit –– a real trip, and not the good kind.  To give you the Sparknotes, we got sent to a mosaic in the olden-days of the Fillorian countryside, and we had to show _the beauty of all life_ to get the key.”  

Margo looks startled as shit, but to her credit, she takes it in her stride the way she does everything.  “I guess I can forgive you for being a few minutes too late for the cradle robbing ceremony, then.  Beauty of all life?  Shit, that’s vague as hell.”

“That’s what I said!” Eliot agrees, remembering when Quentin first told him about this chapter of the quest book.  Eliot hadn’t even been sure what the _mosaic_ was, back then.

“Well, clearly you straightened it out, or you wouldn’t be here,” Margo points out, and chugs some more wine.  She still looks a tiny bit dazed. Eliot doesn’t blame her. He’s felt like every room he’s in is spinning, all fucking day.  “Two fucking years? Really, El? You better say you missed me.”

“Bambi, of _course_ I missed you.  More than indoor plumbing.  More than _tequila.”_

“Damn right you did.”  She’s trying to sound tough, but she sits back down beside him in her slip and pulls him into another hug.  Eliot falls into it, and his eyes sort of start getting misty too, but he stubbornly wipes away any threatening tears.

When they finally pull apart, it seems like hours later, and Eliot’s not sure what Margo’s talking about when she asks, “So, what was it?  You know, in case there’s a pop quiz at the end of all this.” At his confused look, she rolls her eyes, and reaches for yet more wine. “You know –– the beauty of all fucking life?”

Oh.  That old thing.

 _A hearty load of Quentin’s jizz_ is how he might put it if he didn’t know Q would get furiously embarrassed; _two bodies joining together in ecstasy under the stars and the rest of the universe melting away_ is what he might say if he were feeling poetic.  A tiny, niggling voice at the back of his mind reminds him that come wasn’t the only thing spilled just before the key appeared –– there was also Eliot’s confession, _I love you,_ muffled and unheard against Quentin’s skin but definitely expressed.  He’s doing his best to pretend that never happened, even in his own mind.  But it’s unavoidable to remember that it _might_ have had more to do with that than it ever did with sex.

Instead, he just says to Margo, “Unclear.  But you know Fillory, Bambi, there’s always a twist.  More than anything with the tiles, I think it might have just had something to do with –– a moment of pure happiness, maybe.”

He really hopes she doesn’t get the Buffy reference and put it together.  

He tells Margo everything, usually; right now, though, he thinks he wants to keep this thing between him and Quentin to himself for just a little while.  Maybe because she always sees through him too easily and he won’t be able to play it off like a few casual hook-ups if Bambi stares him down with her one wide, knowing eye, and an exact understanding of all Eliot’s desperate emotional issues along with the weakness he’s always had for Q.  Maybe because their time at the mosaic was so special and unusual that he knows nobody else would be able to understand it, what it meant to him, not even his most precious soulfriend.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t actually know, now that they’re back in their own time with their other people, if it’s even still a _thing_ at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have the next two chapters pretty much planned out, but if there are any particular tropes or wish-fulfillments you guys want to see framed against season 3, seriously just drop it in a comment and i'll try to work it in. we're all fun tropes all the time here babie
> 
> also just comment if u liked this chap !! i'm a fragile being in the wake of the finale and i thrive on validation, i'm sure u understand
> 
> also on tumblr here [here ](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com/post/184748217099/dont-ruin-this-on-me) where u can also find my magicians screaming and memeing :')


	2. hell is oneself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 90% of my search history this week is just me looking up terminology about boats. i don't know shit apparently
> 
> that being said, buckle up for this one, folks! it’s the depression monster, which means a bit of Sadness™. if you were fine with that episode of the show, you’ll be fine with this; i take a bit of a softer approach. so go ahead and enjoy! 
> 
> if you're worried about triggers tho, please be mindful that this chapter does have references to suicidal thoughts & attempts in the past; nothing explicit, and nobody actually commits suicide in this, but it's certainly a theme through the latter half of the chap. be gentle with yourselves if you need to

_Why could I not walk out of my prison?_  
_What is hell? Hell is oneself,_  
_Hell is alone, the other figures in it_  
_Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from_  
And nothing to Escape to.

_–– T.S. Eliot_

* * *

 

Sleeping apart from Eliot is _weird._

That is mostly what Quentin thinks about, as he tosses and turns all night in his rarely-occupied king’s chambers at Castle Whitespire.  He doesn’t really like his rooms here; they’re technically luxurious, but also very dark and usually chilly and the furthest away from the library, which annoys him.  Still, the bed is comfy, and should be a huge relief, should be a _blessing_ after two years spent sleeping on a wooden palette.

The thing is, though, he’d just gotten way too used to the comfort of another body beside his.  There were two of those palette beds in their hut, and for the first year they mostly made use of that, except a couple of times they got too drunk and wound up passing out together.  Even on their separate beds, though, they were in the same room, barely a few feet apart; close enough for Quentin to memorise the gentle patterns of Eliot's slow breath each night, learn how to tell whether he’s sleeping deeply or having bad dreams just based on how much the blankets rustle.

And then they started hooking up.  After that, they still did spend plenty of nights in separate beds, especially at first, but even then Eliot was just an arm’s reach away, was still right _there._  And after a while, more nights were spent cuddling up together than not.

That’s not something Quentin ever really had before.  The couple of relationships he had in college were short lived and not good for much more than introducing him to a few sexual firsts and then crushing his self esteem when they ended.  Even with Alice, they’d been on the outs more than they’d been happy, and while the intensity of their relationship wasn’t all bad at the time, they rarely got time to just _be_ together, like the sort of couple who learned each others’ habits and built routines and curled up in the bracket of each others’ bodies every single night.

(Quentin tries really, really hard to not compare that to his time with Eliot.  He and Eliot aren’t a couple, after all.)

Now, his rooms are deafening in their silence, and he finds it agonisingly hard to fall asleep without the soundtrack of deep, even breaths he’s been listening to for the last eight hundred and twenty three nights.  He misses Eliot. It’s weird being without him; that’s all.

Still, it’s been a monumentally long fucking day, so Quentin eventually _does_ sleep, no matter how unhappy he is about it.  The right hand side of his body feels just a little too cold the whole night; the smell of his nice royal pillows is unappealing when he remembers the scent of Eliot’s hair.  Something cold and uncomfortable twists in his chest when he wakes in the morning and reaches across the mattress for another body, only to remember that it’s empty.  That he’s alone.

He shoves the feeling down, down, down, as deep as it will go, and crawls out of bed.

They’re starting a new chapter.  Both literally in the quest, and metaphorically in their lives.  Quentin needs to embrace that, and stop longing for things from the past.

 

* * *

  
It’s Margo who shoves him into the uncomfortable uniform of the palace guards to hide him while the Fairy Queen isn’t paying attention, but it’s Eliot who comes looking for him later.  It’s the first time Quentin has seen him all day –– a day Q has mostly spent moodily kicking dust around the obscure corridor Margo fake-assigned him to, and reading the newest section of the quest book.  He’s trying to not get too hard into his own bad mood, and he tries even harder to ignore how much he instantly feels better when he sees Eliot’s face.

 _Fuck_ , though, he looks so good dressed in his fancy royal clothes again, like something right out of one of Quentin’s renaissance-faire-fuelled teenage wet dreams.  Q can’t help letting out a deep breath when Eliot adjusts his uniform for him; any time that Eliot’s hands are on him, Quentin feels good. It’s like a fundamental fact of life that he just has to deal with, at this point.

But.  There are things to be getting on with.  Boat quest, and all. Quentin takes Eliot to a nook of the corridor and spreads out the map he’d gotten from Benedict earlier, explains the Abyss, where he thinks the new key is.

“–but we get to go on a quest on a magical boat, so, it’s not all bad,” Quentin says, unable to help the smile that spreads across his face, excited despite himself.  No matter how much shit this quest throws at him, it’s still always just so much like what Quentin has _wanted,_ his whole life.  A hero’s journey –– even if he’s sharing it with all his friends, even if it’s not just his.  Magical adventures in the land that saved his life. If it weren’t for the fate of all magic hanging on their shoulders, Q would never want this quest to end.

When he glances up, Eliot is looking at him with an expression Quentin nearly dares to call _fond._

“Q, I ––” El says, but then stops, clears his throat, stands up in one swooping move of his long body.  Quentin quickly gathers the map and stands up too, mostly so he won’t get that look on his face that he can’t help getting when Eliot is looming over him, being all tall and kingly and gorgeous.  It makes Quentin, like, physically _need_ to suck his dick, and he’s not sure if they’re doing that anymore.  Q quickly shakes that thought out of his mind, and instead of whatever he was gonna say, Eliot finishes, “We need to bring Margo, too.  I can’t leave her here with the new, creepy underage Mister Margo Hanson.”

“Yeah, of course,” Quentin quickly agrees.  A tiny, horrible part of him feels jealous that he’ll have to share Eliot with Margo once again, when he’s gotten so used to having to himself, but that part is largely eclipsed by how happy he is that Eliot gets to have his best friend back, and that they’re gonna go on this boat quest together at all.  “We’ll need something to tell the, uh, not-so-benevolent dictator whispering in you guys’ ear, too, I guess.”

“I’ll help Bambi come up with something for the fairy queen once I fill her in,” Eliot says, wrapping an arm around Quentin’s shoulders like it’s the most natural thing in the world.  It sort of _is,_ at this point, and Quentin goes into the touch easily, tucking his face into the crook of Eliot’s neck and shoulder, where he fits so well.

How many hours must they have spent just like this, by now?  He’s sure it was just a reflexive touch on Eliot’s part, the sort of thing he does with any of his close friends, but Quentin still feels a little dizzy, heart hammering, as he inhales the soft smell of Eliot’s skin.  Definitely better than the pillows back in his room. Quentin has almost forgotten there’s any such thing as the quest at all when Eliot adds, “And, lucky me, I’ll get to see you do the thing on the prow of a ship you’ve been waiting your whole life to do.”

That makes Q frown, pulling the tiniest bit out of Eliot’s grasp so he can look up at his face.  Quentin loves magic and fantasy and all the classic tropes of adventure, but he doesn’t think he’s ever had _particular_ goals to do with boats, or their prows.  “What thing?”

“You know,” says Eliot softly, and presses his warm lips to Quentin’s forehead, and Quentin’s entire head is suddenly filled with static; he doesn’t hear another word Eliot says.

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, the second they set sail on the boat, Quentin knows _exactly_ what the thing on the prow is that he’s been waiting to do his whole life, and he definitely does it.

After that, he sits on top of the cabin and looks out across the boundless ocean through his spyglass.  He hangs off the mast and shouts happy things into the winds. He leans over the side of the boat to watch the choppy ocean below and lets the breeze whip through his hair and thinks _Ember’s fucking balls, are some people just, like, this happy all the damn time?_

He knows by now that he shouldn’t expect magic to cure the broken parts of his brain –– and, frankly, he intends to get his Sertraline scrip filled next time he’s back on earth because the last couple years have been  _hard_ –– but for this day at least, Quentin Coldwater is on a quest on a magical fucking boat, and he feels like he wouldn’t have been depressed for a day in his life if he’d been _here_ the whole time.

He’s waving his brand new cutlass clumsily through the air, thinking about how much the teenage Quentin at those renaissance faires with Julia in terrible low-budget homemade costumes would have _swooned_ to see him now, when a gentle hand runs across the expanse of his back.

Q immediately fumbles and nearly drops his sword overboard, managing to hook his hand back around the handle at the last second and somewhat guiltily returning it to its sheath, like a child caught playing with a toy they’re too young for.  Which, to be honest, is accurate.

“Hey, El,” he says, reaching up to push his wind-ruffled hair behind his ears and then finally looking up with a grin at his new companion.  Because he knew it was Eliot without looking; the dancing touch of those long fingers across the top of his spine is seared into Quentin’s mind by now, and he’d know it blind or deaf or anything else.  Eliot is looking down at him with an overwhelmingly fond expression, but he also seems a touch amused, which is all that makes it possible for Quentin to not just collapse into his arms and kiss him right then.  If he looks fond, it’s probably more because he views Quentin as, like, a charmingly incompetent pet, not the love of his life.

 _(Not that you want him to be the love of your life!_ Quentin sternly reminds himself, cheeks flooding with a splotchy blush.)

“Hey, Pirate Q,” Eliot lilts.  His arm drapes across Quentin’s shoulder, so Q wraps an arm around El’s waist in return, as they lean at the edge of the boat together.  “Getting in some quality cutlass time?”

His voice is teasing, which makes Quentin flush harder but also roll his eyes.

“Yeah, well, when the cat’s away,” he mumbles, but kind of hopes Eliot didn’t watch too much of his little display.  He’d definitely almost dropped the sword at least five times. “Thought you were down with Margo?”

“Oh, Bambi’s ripping the poor rigger a new one.”  Quentin tries not to let on how hot he finds it when Eliot uses the proper terms for the boat’s crew; Eliot has teased him about his magical-quest kink enough for one lifetime.  “I think she intends to fuck him afterwards, so I thought I’d make myself scarce.”

“Not in the mood to watch?” Quentin jokes, as the sail swings over their head.  Eliot clicks his tongue.

“Why would I do that when there’s a _far_ cuter boy up here, playing with his sword?”

Quentin untangles his arm from Eliot’s waist, because he thinks maybe they’ve exceeded the amount of time which could be considered strictly platonic to stand like that for, and rests both his elbows on the rail in front of them.  Eliot withdraws his arm from Quentin’s shoulders a moment later, and Quentin tries very hard not to miss the feeling –– it’s not like he’s not had Eliot’s arm around him for _plenty_ of hours before, he reminds himself, he shouldn’t be greedy.

There is quiet for a little while and then from seemingly nowhere, Eliot produces a cigarette.  Not the straights he used to smoke on earth, but one of the hand-rolled ones Eliot himself apparently invented, from some obscure Fillorian herb which was not entirely unlike but also not entirely _like_ tobacco.  It’s already rolled, and Quentin feels a moment of disappointment that he missed out on watching Eliot’s nimble fingers assemble it, before admonishing himself for being such a horny idiot.

Eliot strikes a match against the outside wall of the ship’s cabin and lights his cigarette with it, and then turns around so he can lean backwards on the railing next to Quentin, smoke tumbling out of his lips as he sighs.  Quentin looks at him, sideways, and sort of privately commits Eliot’s profile to memory.  He has done this thousands of times before, but one more memory of El never hurts.  Handsome from every angle, Eliot somehow looks _most_ gorgeous in profile; his long neck arched, his aquiline nose and bowed lips standing out against the blue sky in the distance, looking for all the world like he should be in a painting of the Roman gods more than he should be stood by Quentin Coldwater’s side.

“Want a drag?” Eliot asks, stopping Quentin in the midst of his inner poetic waxing, and holds out the cigarette.  That must have been why he thought Q was staring.

Quentin technically quit smoking a year before he started Brakebills, but to cover up how flushed he’s feeling he takes it anyway, and then asks wryly, “So have we figured out whether Fillory has lung disease yet, or…”

“If we live long enough to find out, I promise I’ll let you say you told me so,” Eliot retorts, taking the cigarette back.  It looks better in his hands, anyway, and certainly better between his lips.

“So.”  Quentin tries not to think it –– he really does.  But this is, sort of, like, the first moment they’ve actually had together since getting back where they could just _talk._ They got swept up by Julia and Margo their first night back, and then it was all about the new quest and the evil fairies and getting to the boat and they were always surrounded by people.  He feels, desperately, like he and Eliot need to decompress, need to say something about the last _two years of their lives_ which only they got to live.  But now that he’s thought that, he doesn’t have a clue where to begin.

“So?” Eliot repeats, when Quentin goes suspiciously silent.  One of El’s eyebrows arches, and he reaches out a hand to prod Quentin’s shoulder, a flurry of cigarette ash falling between them.

“Just.  How are you doing?  Like, being back, and everything?  It feels –– I dunno, I know nobody else was _there,_ and I’ve only really talked to Jules and I guess you did to Margo, but –– I didn’t actually know what to say.  I mean, I didn’t say _much_ , to Julia.  Because, like, how do you sum up two whole years of your life to someone who didn’t live it?  But you, I mean, you lived it, too. So I just wanted to. Check? How you’re feeling.”

Fucking _hell,_ Quentin wishes he had ever learned to speak like a normal human being.  How is it fair that the more things matter to him, the worse he is at making it _sound_ like they matter?  But Eliot turns a soft look on him, and Quentin lets out a breath.  He should have known: by now, if anyone is going to get the point he’s trying to make from his rambling, it’s Eliot.

“Tell all those overheating circuits in your brain to power down, okay, Q,” Eliot says.  He sticks his cigarette back between his lips and uses the newly free hand to brush at Quentin’s shoulder, smoothing down his shirt like it was twisted or something, although Quentin doesn’t think it was.  “I know what you mean. It’s a lot, being back. Fucking great, in some ways, but a lot to take in. I did talk to Margo, but I just gave her the _here’s what you missed on Glee,_ not the –– well.  I didn’t tell her every little thing.  I didn’t quite know how to explain it to someone who wasn’t there, either.”

Quentin hesitates.  He is very deliberately looking out at the waves, _not_ at Eliot, when he asks, “Did you tell her we –– you know.”

Fuck, he’s not even sure why he wants to _know._ And which answer does he even want; does he want this to stay private between the two of them, even if it’s never going to happen again now that they’re back in reality and Eliot could pick a far better option than _Quentin,_ or does he want the half-embarrassing, half-hot, exposing feeling of knowing Eliot told his best friend about fucking Quentin.  Maybe even bragged about it.

Of course, Q might be getting big headed if he thinks Eliot _bragged._ Maybe Eliot told Margo about all the painfully boring, vanilla sex he was forced to have for lack of a better alternative.  Quentin personally thinks everything they did together was more intoxicating than carrot wine and hotter than the sun, but Eliot’s got a magnum opus more sexual experience, and for all Q knows, their opinions weren’t totally equal on the topic.

So maybe he’s relieved when Eliot admits, “I refrained from dropping that little news story, actually.”

“I didn’t tell Julia either,” Quentin says after an awkward beat, and reaches over to steal Eliot’s cigarette for one more drag.  Then, suddenly panicking Eliot might take that the wrong way, he clarifies, “Not that it would be awful for her to know or anything, it’s not like I’m making it into some _secret,_ I just –– well, like you say, it’s, uh, hard to explain the whole mosaic _thing_ to someone who wasn’t there, and that was part of the whole mosaic thing, so I just.  Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees, sounding a little cautious, for reasons Quentin can’t quite put together.  “Besides which, I didn’t necessarily think I should go around telling people without your permission, seeing as you’re the one who was –– taking your first trip over to my side of the pond, shall we say.  I’m not much in the business of outing.”

That’s sweet in sentiment, although Quentin doesn’t actually think he’s ever cared less about something in his life, and can’t help but roll his eyes a little.

“Well it’s not like _Margo_ doesn’t already know I –– I mean, the first time we hooked up, she literally watched me blow you, El.”

Quentin finally dares look away from the sea and back at Eliot’s face, just in time to watch something dark and pleased appear behind Eliot’s eyes.  It sends a jolt to Quentin’s stomach and memories flood his mind for the briefest of moments –– _Margo petting the back of his head as he crawled his way down Eliot’s lap, her fingers tangling in his hair when he first took Eliot into his mouth, pulling in a way which made Quentin groan which then made Eliot groan which sent them all deeper into the depths of ––_ but he shakes himself out of it the next moment.

“That’s true,” Eliot agrees, insouciant, and then neither of them say anything else for a few moments.  The sea air tastes salty and cool as it whips into his lungs, and Quentin sort of feels like the force of the wind is knocking everything bad right out of him.

This would, he thinks, be the perfect time to ask Eliot what’s going on with them now anyway –– if they’re going to ever _do that_ again, or if they left the new facet of their relationship back at the mosaic, abandoned it in their little hut along with the rest of the nice but not-for-earth things they’d accumulated while they were there.  It’s a question Quentin desperately wants the answer to, but is afraid to ask, if case Eliot looks at him like he’s crazy, says _why on earth would we keep fucking now that we’re back in civilisation?  Do you know how many eligible boys want to get in the High King’s breeches?_ Which is either something exactly like Eliot would say, or something the worst nightmare part of Quentin’s mind has made up, but scares him either way.

So instead of saying anything like that, Quentin sighs, leans a little further into the winds, and asks Eliot, “Tell me a story about boats?”

It’s a habit they got into at the mosaic, when long nights stretched into longer days and they began to go stir crazy thinking of nothing but tiles; when they had no books or televisions or other people to entertain them.  Quentin always comes up with very inventive plotlines but stammers and stutters over the telling of them, contradicting himself and looping back to things he already mentioned. Eliot tells his stories like a dream, perfectly eloquent and even-voiced, but they’re always thinly veiled metaphors for real life, and usually just devolve into sex scenes.  Quentin doesn’t mind. He mostly just likes hearing Eliot talk.

“Hmm,” says El, and wraps his arm around Quentin’s shoulders once again, one of his long curls fluttering in the wind and brushing Q’s forehead.  “Once upon a time, there was a very adorable knight with the eyes of a puppy, and he was going on a quest. In one of his battles, the knight had accidentally wronged a god, so she had turned off the sun as revenge.  Now everything on earth was dark, and it was only this brave-hearted knight who could change it back, by sailing into the coldest heart of the world on his magical boat.”

It’s an even less veiled metaphor than usual, but it makes Quentin’s heart warm to hear El talk, and he gives into himself for a moment; lets himself lean into Eliot’s chest and just be in _this moment_ instead of all the other moments which threaten him outside of it.

“Luckily,” El continues, his voice raising as he gets more into the story, “The knight had help, for he happened to know a very handsome prince, with a very big dick ––”

“Is his big dick relevant to the story?” Quentin asks wryly.  Eliot clicks his tongue.

“Don’t interrupt,” he says, and then, cheerfully, “And you’d be surprised by _just_ how relevant it is.”

Quentin laughs, and lets Eliot keep telling the story right up until the moment the ocean suddenly draws dark in front of them, a pure black sky swallowing up the horizon without even the breaking light of stars to cut it through.

They seem to have found the Abyss.

 

* * *

 

Margo appears above deck a while later, looking like she either fucked the rigger or murdered him, based on the state of her hair.  She comes to lean along the rail with Eliot and Quentin and their newly lit lanterns, and doesn’t seem all that impressed with the darkness.

“Did that help?” Eliot asks soothingly, as he reaches out to fix her bedhead.  Quentin pulls the tiniest bit away from the both of them, mostly so Margo won’t notice how close he was leaning into Eliot _before_ and put anything together that Eliot apparently doesn’t want her to know.

“Did fucking a stranger help get my mind off the fact that I still _haven’t_ fucked my fifteen year old husband and the fairy queen is gonna cut my tits off and feed them to me if I don’t do it the second we get back from this trip?”  Quentin watches in the flickering torchlight as Margo raises an eyebrow. After a long beat of silence from all of them, she says, “Kinda, yeah.”

Quentin’s just about to suggest the three of them go downstairs again –– the boat’s drawn still while the crew get their bearings in the darkness, and he thinks he saw some board games down in the cabin, plus it’s kind of chilly up here –– when the silence of the dark ocean is cut by a ravaged voice in the distance.

“ _HELP!  IS SOMEONE OUT THERE?  HELPPPP!”_

Quentin startles into action, eyes going wide, but Margo’s snatched his spyglass from him before he can raise it, and she peers out to the sea.

“Well, fuck me raw,” Margo announces, a moment later.  “We should probably grab the captain. There’s some chick out there on a raft.”

 

* * *

 

Poppy Klein, as it turns out, is a Brakebills student, part of the lost third year class.  Quentin knows this partly because of the insignia on her jacket, but mostly because she recognises Eliot and Margo instantly, and announces, far too cheerfully for someone they just dregged out of the ocean who looks soaked half to death and has seaweed in her hair, “Hey, aren’t you two physical kids?  You threw that three-day levitating rave when you were in first year!  I got a UTI at that party.”

“You’re welcome,” says Margo, while Quentin is thinking that he’d quite like to go and lie down now.

Still, though, she’s a shipwreck victim _and_ technically a classmate, and they just saved her life, so Quentin thinks he can mark that down in his _good things I have achieved on this quest_ column, and he tries not to find the idea of yet another person ( _yet another buffer between me and Eliot ever getting some alone time,_ he doesn’t think) too exhausting.  After all, they’re on a quest on a magical boat.  There’s nothing to be sad about today.

“Girl, let’s get you into some dry clothes that smell a little less like the ocean took a dump on you,” Margo’s saying to Poppy, and before long, Quentin finds they’re all being steered below the deck.

 

* * *

 

Poppy starts just getting changed in front of everyone with a lack of shame which nearly makes Quentin queasy for how unrelatable it is to him, and he quickly and awkwardly turns his back, although he notes Eliot and Margo seem to have no problem watching her get changed.

Eliot’s the one who pours drinks, so of _course_ they’re strong.  

It turns out Poppy knows Josh Hoberman.  She’s part of _that_ whole doomed expedition.  Another drink. She talks about dragons for a while.  Another drink. Poppy looks over her shoulder and for a moment Quentin thinks he catches a glimpse of something worrying and _scared_ on her face, but then she turns back with a wide grin, and there’s more drinks, and he forgets about the moment.  They all find themselves sat around the little table; Poppy in the comfy chair, Margo and Eliot sprawled across the luxurious chaise like they were simply made to be entangled, her back pressed against his chest, his arm draped across her body.  Quentin’s on the floor, legs crossed. Technically, he’s sat between Eliot’s legs. But he’s trying not to think too hard about that. It’s a good position, anyway, because it means he can’t _look_ at Eliot.  Looking at Eliot gets him into all sorts of trouble, these days.

Another drink.   Another drink. The night passes, or whatever they can call the night, since the sky outside will stay dark no matter what time it is.  After Poppy’s told them about her boat being wrecked off the coast of the truth waters, and how she’d survived three weeks on a raft before they found her, they’re all tipping just the wrong edge into drunk.  Margo sneaks off for a quickie with that rigger she’d liked earlier. Eliot goes off into another room in search of an apparently hidden stash of rum, which he needs to make this cocktail he’s _insisting_ Poppy must try.

His hand trails across the top of Quentin’s head as he leaves.

Then, Poppy asks, “What’s up with magic being gone, by the way?”  

“Um,” says Quentin.  He is definitely feeling the alcohol, everything he wants to say or do coming out even clumsier than usual, and he’s also not sure how to say _I killed a god and basically ruined the whole world with the consequences_ in a way that won’t make her try to possibly attack him.

Luckily, she doesn’t really wait around for an answer –– a goal orientated woman, he can respect that –– and just follows up with, “I just hope someone’s gonna get it back!”

 _That,_ drunk Quentin thinks, his chest filling with something like pride, is an opening he can deliver on.

“That person is sort of, um, me,” he says, smiling down into his cup a little bit as he inspects the dregs of his wine.  “I’m on a, uh, a quest, right, for these golden keys, right ––” Okay, he is _definitely_ drunker than he thought, his tongue tripping over everything even more than it normally does –– “So, there’s seven of them ––”

“Golden keys?”  Poppy’s eyes have lit up, and Quentin freezes for a second as she fishes something out of the neck of her shirt.  “You mean, like _this?”_

 _Holy shit,_ thinks Quentin.   _She has the key._ Maybe saving her wasn’t a detour from the quest after all.  Maybe it was, like, the whole fucking thing.

 

* * *

 

The next think Quentin knows, he’s waking up on the sofa.  His mouth tastes awful and is tacky-dry, and his head throbs, but he’s been helpfully tucked under a blanket by somebody.   _El,_ his mind supplies, recognising the way Eliot always carefully tucked him in when Quentin would fall asleep on their couch-bench at the mosaic, or in the grass somewhere; arms free of the blanket so he doesn’t feel trapped, but the rest of him carefully swaddled, the ends of the fabric tucked under his feet to make sure he doesn’t get cold toes.

Despite the unpleasant reminders of just how much he drank, Quentin’s heart flutters to think of how much El always takes care of him.  He blinks open his foggy eyes, and makes out a male figure sat, watching him, in the closest chair.

“El?” Quentin mumbles fondly, blearily rubbing at his eyes and raising his head a bit further.

Only ––

“Wow, there’s that genius level intellect,” Quentin Coldwater drawls sarcastically, sat straight-backed in the chair.  His eyes scan up and down real-Quentin coolly, and he’s clearly not impressed with what he finds. “Way to be pathetic once again, by the way.  You blacked out after what, five drinks? And needed Eliot to tuck you into bed like he’s your _mommy?_ Sure, _that’s_ bound to seduce him, good job.”

“I –– uh, uhm, I, er,” says Quentin, as he stumbles out of his cosy blanket cocoon and wobbles to his feet.  He gestures to the other Quentin, the not-Quentin, and then his own hand catches his attention; his eyes drift down, and he realises he’s clutching the new key.  A sickening thought begins to dawn on him. He eloquently finishes, _“Um_."

“Can’t even get a solid sentence out, huh?” Other Quentin sighs, following Quentin as he stumbles back through the cabin.  “Add that to the fact that you hold your liquor like a kindergartener, you _sure_ are the whole package.”

Quentin, rather hastily, drops the fucking key with a _clatter_ onto the floorboards, watching it bounce at his feet.  He takes a deep breath, and then looks back up.

Other Quentin is still there.  He raises an unimpressed eyebrow.  “Seriously? You thought _that_ would work?”

Quentin backs up a few more steps, stuttering, and suddenly finds himself bumping into a solid figure.  One breath is all he needs to know who it is, as Eliot’s familiar hands reflexively catch at Quentin’s elbows, like they must have done a hundred times by now when Q’s accidentally stumbled back against him for some reason or another.

Quentin turns his head and looks up, swallowing hard as he meets Eliot’s confused gaze.  “Can you –– are you –– are you seeing this?”

He gestures fruitlessly to Other Quentin, but when Eliot’s eyes follow Q’s hand, they’re confused and hazy and just scan the whole room.  So that seems to be a _no._

“See what, Q?”

“Great,” says Other Quentin, rolling his eyes like the mere act of watching Q is _exhausting._ “Like he needs any more reasons to think you’re crazy.”

Quentin tries very, very hard to ignore the other him.  He bends and scoops the key up off the floor, since it doesn’t seem like putting it down does any good and the _last_ thing he needs is to have some sort of invisible, demon version of himself following him around _and_ lose the key while he’s at it.  Of course, all of this must look like mightily sketchy behaviour to Eliot, who is definitely looking at Q like he might have lost his mind when Quentin turns around.

“Quentin?” El tries delicately.  “Everything okay? It’s only a few hours since you fell asleep, so if you're feeling loopy you might just be hungover ––”

“I, uhm –– hold that thought?” Quentin interrupts.  “I gotta go, er, talk to Poppy.”

 

* * *

  

“What the fuck did you do?”

Quentin barges into the room where Poppy’s doing yoga, Eliot hot on his heels, because of course Eliot wouldn’t just ignore a bunch of shifty behaviour and then Quentin dashing off to talk to their mysterious new shipmate rather than explaining anything.  Quentin is always and forever hyper aware of Eliot’s presence, but right now, he feels like his usual orbit around Eliot has been shifted to an orbit around Other Quentin –– Horrible Quentin –– and he can’t really even pay attention to that fact that Eliot’s there until he at least knows what’s going on with himself.

Poppy looks –– well, Quentin wouldn’t say _amused,_ but certainly not that upset either.

“Okay, calm down, I can explain,” she says, as she sinks into a lunge.  Quentin would quite frankly _love_ to be chill enough to be doing yoga right now, and he thinks it’s awfully unfair that Poppy is; he resists the petty urge to kick her foot out from under her.

“There’s another me!  And he’s –– and he’s _mean,_ he’s saying mean things, and nobody else can see him, and what the _fuck_ is going on?”

“Wait, _what?”_ Eliot interjects, stepping up closer behind Q, but Quentin ignores him in favour of glaring at Poppy as best he possibly can.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she says, raising an arm above her head and humming lightly.  “The key does have a power. It sort of, like… takes all the darkest parts of you, and bundles them up into something that looks like you and talks like all your worst insecurities and follows you around.  It’s like, you know, a Depression Monster.”

A _depression monster,_ like that’s a thing.

“It can’t hurt you, though,” she assures him cheerfully, bending over deep at one side so her hair goes tumbling across her smiling face.  “You’ve just gotta make sure it doesn’t get into your head enough to make you hurt _yourself,_ and you’ll be fine.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Eliot says weakly, and one of his hands braces on Quentin’s shoulder from behind, like he’s trying to physically hold Quentin’s will to live inside of him.  In the corner of the room, Q spots Depression Quentin, observing the lot of them with an unimpressed sneer.

Quentin wants to shove Poppy back overboard onto her raft and let her take her chances in the Abyss.  He’s not _going_ to, but holy shit.

“You’ll be fine, though,” Poppy assures him again, maybe rightly spotting that Q looks like he’s about to pass out from stretch.  “I mean, not everyone can handle it, but it’s not a _total_ death sentence.  Like, at least half of my shipmates survived it, before we hit that freaking iceberg at least.  If it gets too much, just pass it to someone else.  It only affects the last person who touched the key.”

As if _that’s_ some great relief.

“I’m sorry,” says Eliot, and his voice is suddenly dangerously even.  “This key made half your shipmates _kill_ themselves, and you gave it to _Quentin_?”

“Well, yeah!  Don’t get me wrong, I was a total badass about it, but three weeks of just me takes a toll on a girl, yanno?  He’s, like, the happiest, most positive person here, so I figured he had the best shot.” Eliot must still be glaring at her, because she rolls her eyes.  “Chill out, dude.”

Quentin lets out a nearly hysterical bubble of laughter at that assessment of himself, and in the corner, the Depression Quentin snorts too.  “ _It couldn’t possibly be more clear that she doesn’t know a thing about you.”_

“This is _not_ how I usually am,” Quentin assures her.  It’s only the heavy, grounding feeling of Eliot’s hand on his shoulder that’s stopping him having a total breakdown right this second.  “We’re –– like –– we’re on a magical boat! You can’t judge me based on _this,_ I’m usually ––”

“ _A pathetic, moping, depressed pile of shit who drives even your closest friends crazy enough to push you away once they’re done with your bullshit?”_ Depression Quentin suggests.

“––shut _up,”_ Quentin interjects, suddenly out of breath with the force of his own shout.

Both Poppy and Eliot are suddenly staring at him.  It sends a cold, creeping feeling down the back of his neck.  Quentin doesn’t like it at all.

“Q, you need to pass that key along, right the fuck now,” Eliot says, holding out his hand.  Quentin immediately shoves it into his pocket, out of reach.

“No fucking way, El.  Not if there’s a fifty percent chance the next person I give it to is gonna kill themselves!”  And when Eliot tries to grab it off him, Quentin darts out of reach. “No! And _especially_ not to you, Eliot.  I know you, remember?  You think your self destructive tendencies need any more fuel?  No way, I’m not letting anything happen to you.”

“What, and I’m just supposed to let it happen to _you?”_ Eliot asks incredulously, his eyes wide and glossy with horror as he stares at Quentin in the flickering candlelight.  “You have _diagnosed_ major depressive disorder, Quentin!  You have literally been put in hospital for it _without_ a magical monster designed to drive you to the brink!”

Quentin swallows hard around that truth, but sticks stubborn in his resolve.

“That just –– that just means I know how to deal with it better than anyone,” he insists.  (“ _Sure, that’s really the message from the four different times you were hospitalised, that you could ever actually_ learn _from your mistakes,”_ Depression Quentin interjects, and Quentin ignores him.)  “I can tough it out til we get back to Whitespire. We can figure something out back there.”

He determinedly doesn’t let himself think about what will happen if they _can’t_ figure something out back at Whitespire.  He can get through this if he just has an end point to aim for; a light at the end of the tunnel, right?

“Quentin ––” Eliot says, voice wretchedly soft, and Q closes his eyes.

“No arguing, El.  If anyone has a blackbelt in resisting suicidal urges, it’s me, okay?”

“ _Resisting them, is that what you’re calling it now?  You know that you can’t keep lying to him like you do to everyone else in your life; at some point, you’re going to have to tell him about the attempts.”_

A long, long beat of silence.  When Quentin opens his eyes again, Poppy is touching her toes.  Depression Quentin is still staring him down with an unimpressed sneer.  And Eliot ––

“You are not allowed to be alone for a single _second_ while you have that key, okay?” Eliot says desperately.  Something in Quentin relaxes all at once, knowing Eliot’s not gonna try and take it.  He can handle the barrage against himself, but he couldn’t handle seeing _Eliot_ worn down by something like this, could handle it even less if Eliot ever tried to hurt himself.  “I mean it. Not even to pee. Insert joke here about us getting kinkier by the day, et cetera, I don’t care, we are _keeping you safe.”_

“ _Way to go, you’ve become nothing more than a burden on yet another person you love.  No wonder he doesn’t love you back. He has to take care of you like a fucking pet.”_

Quentin swallows very, very hard, and tries to ignore the other version of him over his shoulder.  Instead, he looks wide eyed up at El and says, “Thank you, El.”

He means, _thank you for not trying to take the key and making me watch you go through this instead,_ but he’ll let Eliot take the thanks however he wants to interpret them.

And then, Eliot rounds on Poppy.

“And _you,”_ Eliot says, pulling himself up to the fullest extreme of his height and looming over Poppy, looking vengeful and powerful and every part the High King he is.  She, at last, pauses her yoga, shrinking under Eliot’s glare. “You selfish _fuck._ If you had just told us what the key did, we could have figured something out together, but you had to go and force it onto the _one_ person who needs it least.  You had a chance to be truly helpful, to the entire fucking world that we’re trying to save with this quest, and instead you decided to keep secrets and manipulate us and _hurt Q._ If anything happens to Quentin because of this, and I mean _anything,_ I will toss you back into the ocean and let you _rot_ there.”

If Quentin wasn’t currently having the life barraged out of him by the sum of all his self-hatred poured into his own evil doppleganger, he thinks he would find Eliot standing up for him like that really, _really_ hot.

(Okay, so maybe he still kind of does.)

 

* * *

 

The first night passes slow ––

“ _The problem is your hair.  Everyone can tell you’re just trying to hide your face.”_

Agonisingly slow, no matter how much Quentin tries to distract himself with books or ––  
  
“ _When are you going to get over this pseudo-intellectual facade you’re trying to put on?  You’re not fooling anyone by sitting around with all these encyclopedias from the royal library; they all know the only books you care about are for middle schoolers.”_

Or with sitting with Eliot and the boat’s crew as they chat ––

“ _Do you even hear yourself when you talk?  Stumbling over every single sentence, it’s_ exhausting.   _You should learn to shut up before they realise you’ve got nothing interesting to say.”_

Or jogging circles around the cabin, or working his way through a whole bottle of wine ––

_“There you go again, contributing to that early seed of alcoholism.  You know that’s gonna seem less edgy when you’re dying of liver failure before you reach thirty, right?  Not that anybody would miss you if you did.”_

He even tries asking Eliot to tell him a story, but that doesn’t work either; he can’t let it calm him down the way it usually does, too put off by the worried glint of Eliot’s eyes, and the way his voice is softer, more fragile than usual as he spins a wholesome tale about a young man who could do anything he set his mind to and always came out the other sides of his hardships.

He’s trying hard not to notice the way Eliot’s looking at him, pained and getting more worried by the second, but it’s harder to ignore as the night wears on.  Eventually, most of the crew have either retired to bed or gone back up on deck, and it’s just El and Quentin –– and Depression Quentin, whispering in Q’s ear about how he’s the _real_ reason his parents got a divorce –– and Eliot seems to just, all of a sudden, break.

He snaps up from the chair he’s sat in, strokes a hand over his hair in a harried gesture that seems far more Quentin-esque than Eliot-esque, and then snaps his fingers until Quentin stands up.

“Okay, new plan,” Eliot says, with the air of someone who is _supremely_ aware Quentin is already teetering far too close to the brink of complete misery, and it hasn’t even been a day.  “Come with me.”

Quentin’s really far too in the habit of just doing whatever Eliot wants, so his body is following before he even really gives it permission to.  Not that he doesn’t want to follow; wherever Eliot’s leading him right now, it has to be better than _here,_ even if just for the fact that he gets a few seconds of respite from Depression Quentin because he’s moved.

Eliot leads him, as it turns out, to a bedroom.  There seem to be quite a few of those on this ship; some purposed for the crew to sleep in, some more luxurious and clearly catering to the higher-ups and royal guests the Muntjac is used to entertaining.  Q wouldn’t actually be surprised if rooms grew and shrank away as needed on this boat, given the magical nature of it. This bedroom is of the fancier variety –– not necessarily spacious, but gorgeously furnished and luxuriously outfitted.  The familiar trunk of clothes spilling over in the corner confirms Q’s theory that this is the room Eliot claimed, when they all climbed aboard yesterday and he immediately disappeared downstairs.

Quentin has barely time to notice all this before he finds himself shoved backwards into the closed door.

“Wha––” he splutters, but the rest of the words are cut off by Eliot’s lips descending onto his.

It’s –– oh, fuck, it’s like _breathing._ Quentin gasps against Eliot’s mouth like he’s been drowning for hours and El’s skin is his first shot of air.  He quickly scrabbles to grab a hold of Eliot’s jacket, tug him closer, like he does anytime Eliot kisses him this way.  Suddenly it seems ridiculous that they haven’t done this since they got back from the mosaic, even if it’s only been a couple of days.  Suddenly it seems ridiculous they’re not doing this _always,_ every second of their lives.  Quentin pushes up against Eliot’s whole body and calms himself by the way their chests rise and fall in time.

Then, just when the kissing is starting to make Q dizzy, Eliot pulls away.

“So, here’s my thinking,” El says, as if they were in the midst of a conversation already, and unreasonably composed considering he just kissed the breath out of Quentin.  “In the _last_ leg of this quest, an orgasm from me counted as a form of pure happiness so strong it could represent the most beautiful things in this whole grand universe.”

“I don’t know if that’s _exactly_ what happened,” Quentin says, rolling his eyes despite himself, because even when he’s in the midst of a personal crisis it’s still his responsibility to not let Eliot’s head get too big.

“Yes, okay, darling, we can debate semantics later, but all I’m _saying_ is… why don’t we give it a shot for this one as well?  Surely a taste of ultimate pleasure is a good weapon against a misery monster, at least in theory.”

Quentin’s torn between horny and disappointed, but he tries not to let either show on his face.  It’s –– right, of course, Eliot’s only kissing him now because of the quest, because it’s a means to an end, because he wants to get rid of the depression monster, and probably because he knows Quentin’s never had anything better in his life than Sex With Eliot Waugh.

“ _So now you’re gonna take a pity fuck, too?”_ Depression Quentin complains, sitting on the bed and inspecting his fingernails.  Quentin swallows. Not that; not pity. No matter how much he’s unsure of Eliot’s real feelings towards him, it’s never felt like anything they do in bed (or on the floor, the couch, in the bathtub, whatever) is anything less than enthusiastically given.

Of course, this is a pretty special circumstance.

“I guess it’s worth a shot,” Quentin says thickly, although he can feel the other-him’s eyes on him from across the room even when he closes his eyes, and it’s the opposite of sexy.

Sexy is when Eliot kisses him again, tucks a hand under Quentin’s shirt to stroke at his stomach, tease down the sensitive groove of his hips with a soft finger, sucks hard little bites down the side of Quentin’s neck before dropping to his knees, right there, with Q still pushed against the door.  Quentin tries to catch his breath, but looking down at Eliot like this is nearly impossible to survive; all glinting eyes and tumbling curls and lips already spit-damp and red from their kisses, looking like everything Quentin wants to sink into, not just his dick but everything about him, like he just wants Eliot to swallow him whole.

“ _Jesus,”_ says Depression Quentin, and he’s suddenly closer, leaning over Eliot’s shoulder while El kisses the skin of Quentin’s belly.  Quentin jolts, but Eliot must think it’s from the enthusiastic little nip he just gave, because he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t look up or see the look on Quentin’s face as Depression Quentin says, “ _Is that really your sex face?  All screwed up like a pug dog? No wonder most people never come back for a second go with you.”_

“Shut up,” Quentin hisses, closing his eyes and trying to focus on just the feeling of Eliot, ignore everything else.

But it’s ––

The depression monster just keeps _standing there_ and _talking._ He criticises every part of Quentin’s body on display and then some.   _And the award for most average dick in the world goes to._ He draws up all Quentin’s most secret preferences and rips them apart.   _As if it couldn’t get more pathetic, you just like when he holds you down.  Can’t you ever manage to be the one taking charge?_

He reminds Quentin of his every past sexual failure.  How he came in two seconds when he lost his virginity and the girl walked out right after.  The time he tried to prove he could be passionate and ended up accidentally headbutting a girl in the face so hard she got a nosebleed, and they had to sit in the dorm bathroom together in their underwear while he helped her put tissues up her nose to stop the blood, and he’d still had an erection, and she’d called him a freak.  How Alice faked orgasms because she didn’t know how to tell him he sucked in bed.

 _“Eliot has definitely had better sex with at least a thousand other people,”_ Depression Quentin reminds him.  “ _You should hurry up and get this one over with, so he can go out and find someone who actually knows what they're doing with him.”_

Quentin tries to shut it all out, he _really_ does, but it’s impossible.  After a while he can barely even feel Eliot touching him, knelt between his legs and trying to turn him on, because every nerve ending in Quentin’s body is just lit up with the uncomfortable heat of shame.

He gulps hard and pushes El away.  Eliot goes easily, changing his attention from Quentin’s mostly-soft dick to his face, and looking utterly miserable when he realises Quentin is sort of on the brink of tears.  Like Quentin needed to feel more pathetic.

“ _Now you can’t even get it up?  Jesus, what’s wrong with you? The most beautiful man in the known universe wants to use his master cocksucking skills on_ your _pathetic ass, because you’ve somehow tricked him into thinking that’s a good idea, and you won’t even enjoy it?”_

“Sorry ––” Quentin says, his voice thick as he pulls his pants back up miserably.  “I can’t, I just ––”

“Hey, Q, it’s okay,” Eliot assures him softly, rising to his feet and catching the back of Quentin’s head with one hand.  A clearly affected light tone is slapped onto his voice as he adds, “Happens to everyone! I could tell you horror stories about the time I mixed vodka with magical coke and couldn’t get it up for a week.  And that’s a far worse excuse than a literal depression monster whispering in your ear.”

“He’s not exactly whispering,” Quentin says, sending a withering glare to the version of himself over Eliot’s shoulder.  “More like shouting, at this point.”

“It was just an idea.  We’ll find some other way to get rid of it,” Eliot says, but, like always, the deep well of emotion in his eyes betrays how worried he really is.

 

* * *

 

Quentin attempts to sleep.  It doesn’t really _work,_ but he maybe gets a fitful hour of rest on and off, with Eliot in the lightest of dozes next to him, clearly ready to wake up any second if Quentin tried to get off the bed and go somewhere without supervision.  

It’s –– tempting, Quentin has to admit, as he’s woken yet again by Depression Quentin hissing in his ear, reminding him of everything he’s ever done wrong, how all he ever does is make things worse for the people around him, how he’ll never amount to anything, how he could never even get killing himself right.

Quentin’s throat feels hot and sore from clenching around his own urge to sob.  He pulls a pillow over his head to try and drown out the noises, and lets his achingly tired eyes drift closed again.

He’s not sure how long he dozes for that time; although it feels like it’s only a few seconds, it must be longer, because when he wakes up and peeks out from under the pillow, Eliot’s no longer in bed with him.  Quentin feels a hot flash of panic and opportunity in equal measure, before realising El’s only across the room. Margo’s there, too. They’re speaking in harried whispers to each other, little hissing versions of their words drifting across to Q.

“ _They’re probably deciding what to do with you, since you’re incapable of doing anything yourself,”_ Depression Quentin says, taking Eliot’s place in the bed and lounging with his head in one hand.  Quentin screws his eyes tight shut so he doesn’t have to look at his own face taunting him. “ _You should do something right for once in your life, and take the decision out of their hands.  They’d be better off without having to look after you.”_

“Shut up shut up shut up,” Quentin whispers, and buries his head back under the pillow.

 

* * *

  

It is either moments or minutes or an hour later when the pillow is suddenly ripped off Quentin’s head.

“Get up,” says Margo, every inch a queen as she looms over him and snaps her fingers impatiently.  “Can’t _believe_ you fuckwads didn’t come get me the second this happened.  Jesus fucking Christ, _men._ Come on, Coldwater, chop chop, I said get your ass out of bed and let Mama Margo fix this.”

Margo doesn’t do kid gloves, even when there are magical forces of torment in the works.  It’s oddly comforting, knowing that even if she is sort of looking at him like she’s as worried as Eliot, her treatment of him isn’t gonna change.  Quentin swallows hard and rolls out of the bed, hugging his arms around himself and trying hard to ignore Depressing Quentin, who is muttering over Margo’s shoulder.

Eliot’s in the doorway, and his hand brushes Q’s waist as he passes, sneaking into the gap between his shirt and pants for the briefest of moments to press warm skin-upon-skin.  It’s definitely an accident, probably, but the touch grounds Quentin for a moment, and he lets himself enjoy it.

That is, until all thoughts are suddenly wiped away, as he emerges from the bedroom and sees what Margo’s done.

It’s –– well, it seems to be at least most of the boat’s crew, all sat around in the main room of the cabin.  Some are drinking whiskey on the sofas, others playing the traditional Fillorian dice-and-counters boardgame which Quentin had been wanting to try back before all this shit went down.  He doesn’t spot Poppy anywhere, but other than that, it seems like every available person has suddenly materialised down here. It had seemed almost achingly empty in here earlier, with just him and El and Depression Quentin failing to fill out the cavernous space, but now there are a rough dozen other people.

“Margo, w––” Quentin begins to ask, but Margo just steers him further into the room with a strong grip on his elbow, and doesn’t let him finish.

“We,” she announces, “Are doing this the _smart_ way.  We are all fucking sitting in here together, sending out only _essential_ personnel to man the fuckin’ deck when they need to.  And we are trading off the key in shifts. _Short_ fucking shifts, so the monster doesn’t have time to give anyone ideas.  Whoever touched it last doesn’t go _anywhere_ alone, and we all look out for each other, until we get the fuck back to Whitespire and figure out what to do.”

Before Quentin can say anything, Margo tightens her grip on his elbow so that he can’t escape, reaches into his pocket, and snatches the key.

It’s an instant thing.  One moment Depression Quentin is hovering over Margo’s shoulder, hissing _“Just go and jump off the boat before your weakness means anyone else has to suffer through t––”_ and the next, he’s gone, disappeared into the very air, and Quentin can breathe.

Except, that means that Margo ––

“Margo, no, give it back,” Quentin tries desperately, even though the relief of the monster disappearing is nearly staggering and there’s nothing he wants less than to bring it back.  But having it himself is better than watching his friends suffer through it, and he tries to reach for the key anyway.

Margo isn’t having it.  She tucks the key into her bra and raises an eyebrow at him, like she’s daring him to come get it _now_ . Quentin, who _has_ actually touched her boobs before but is constantly, nervously trying to avoid thinking about or mentioning that, backs off.

“No way, Coldwater.  Trust me, I’m tough shit, I can take a little trash talk from a beautiful woman.  And when I don’t wanna deal anymore, I’m passing it on to –– Coan, was it?”

The mate sat closest to them nods, seeming completely unfazed as he takes his turn rolling the dice for their game.  

“Right.  And when Coan’s had enough, he’ll _say,_ because we are all being fucking _honest_ about our _limits_ tonight.  And he’ll pass it on to someone else.”  Margo stares Quentin down, and for all the world manages to seem like she’s about a foot taller than him, even though she’s not in her heels and has to tilt her head up to meet his eyes.  Margo’s energy is always so much bigger than her body; she has a way of making Quentin feel small, and he only ever likes it. “That’s it. We are being smart, because smart and alive is way better than brave and _dead_.  There will be no fucking martyr bullshit on my boat tonight, capiche?”

“Okay,” Quentin agrees, weakly, because it’s just not in him to fight anymore.  He’s exhausted, mentally from the monster and physically because the monster wouldn’t let him _sleep,_ and Margo may have a point.  As much as Quentin would like to spare everyone from this, would like to shoulder the burden alone –– well, he has to admit, part of that would just be wanting to prove he could.  Wanting to prove that he was worthy of the fucking quest, or whatever. That he was brave. But sometimes, bravery isn’t all there is.

Margo seems to accept his acquiescence, because after a long moment of staring deep and searching into his eyes, she nods.  Her lips set in determination, she reaches out to pull Quentin into a brief hug. He closes his eyes and burrows into her hair and feels it, feels it, feels it.

Sometimes it’s easy to think just _Eliot Eliot Eliot_ and forget that Margo, too, is one of his best friends.  Right now, he’s not forgetting, though. He’s thinking about how he’s never known anyone stronger than her, and that he’s really, really lucky she’s chosen him to be someone under her protection; someone who matters in her world.

After she pulls out of the hug, Margo clears her throat and saunters off into the cabin, key still tucked into her bra, to find something to do.  Quentin considers following, but he’s really not sure he’s still up to socialising right now, so he stays at the edge of the room where he is instead, trying to sort through the mess in his mind.  That’s a task which would probably take a lifetime and a whole lot of therapy, but he can process at least, like, the last three minutes without feeling like his head’s gonna explode.

He’s repeating _smart is better than brave_ in his head a moment later, as he sways backwards a little and finds himself suddenly anchored against the hard press of Eliot’s body.

Eliot, who hasn’t left his side this entire time, and is still right there.  

Something a little guilty twists in Quentin’s stomach, but he can’t help turning his head and saying quietly, “El?  Will you, uh –– I know everyone’s supposed to take their turn or whatever, but just, if you can help it, will you –– will you please, please not touch that key?  I just, I can’t ––”

 _I can’t watch you go through that,_ he wants to say, but his voice chokes around the words and he falls hopelessly silent.  Eliot seems to get it, though, and wraps a soothing arm around the front of Q’s shoulders, pulling him back into Eliot’s chest again.  Quentin lets himself sag into the embrace, gives all his weight over to Eliot and trusts El to hold him up, and for a moment they just stand there, alone in their shadowy little corner of the cabin.

“It’s okay, Q,” Eliot mutters, and presses the softest little kiss into Quentin’s hair, a gesture which barely seems to fit in the boundaries of whatever the relationship between them is these days.  “It’s okay, I promise. I won’t touch it. I’m High fucking King, I make the rules here, it’s okay, I can skip this round of dutiful suffering.”

Ember’s balls, Quentin certainly hopes so.  He takes solace in the idea that Eliot, at least, won’t have to face the most wounded parts of himself today, and then just stands there and soaks in the feeling of Eliot’s body all pressed along his.  It feels a little bit like he shouldn’t be allowed to have this, like he’s cheating the rules of the universe somehow, but right now Quentin couldn’t care less. He counts in his head; he’ll let himself say nothing, and just feel Eliot, for one whole minute, he decides.

He goes maybe just a little bit over that minute, and when he finally does pull away, Quentin can only think to say, “Uh, so I need a fucking nap.”

At that, Eliot laughs.  And while the damage of the night isn’t undone to Quentin’s mind, he feels a little bit lighter; light enough to smile, at least, in a way which doesn’t feel like agony when the corners of his mouth turn up.

“I’ll come with you,” Eliot says, and guides Quentin back to bed.

 

* * *

 

Margo is strong.  She knows this about herself.  She is a tough ass bitch and she can weather _anything,_ fight demons and come out the other side with her outfit still on point, whatever.

She has to admit, though, this has given her a run for her money.

She managed to hold onto the key the longest before needing a break; that, she reminds herself, is a point of fucking _pride._ All those swarthy sailors who’ve seen untold horrors across their past voyages, even their tough-as-nails ship’s captain who tried to say that no magic could hold madness more than being lost at sea a dozen times had already given him, broke _way_ before High Queen Margo the Fucking Destroyer.

Her plan works, too, for the record.  Zero casualties, and they pass the key back and forth for two days and two nights –– except Quentin, who she has banned from the roster because fuck everything if she’s gonna let her favourite depressed baby boy nerd torment himself with a monster _designed_ to make you kill yourself, and Eliot, who _Quentin_ has banned from the roster because he’s apparently Quentin’s emotional support animal now, whatever.   They’re all keeping a fucking eye on each other, is the point, manning the deck with a skeleton crew so they can support each other below deck, only sleeping in short spurts whenever they get a chance, and being really, super fucking careful.

By the grace of Ember and Umber or whoever the _fuck_ you’re supposed to praise in Fillory now those two are dead, they make it out of the Abyss quick, and they’re back to Whitespire before the third day breaks.

Now, it’s Margo’s turn on the key again.  They parted with most of their ship’s crew at the docks, and she sure as shit wasn’t gonna let El or Quentin carry it for the carriage ride back to Whitespire.  She periodically tells the Other Margo to shut her bitch-ass mouth, and ignores any looks from Eliot and Quentin like they’re worried about her mental state, because she’s _fine._ She’s gonna be fine.  They’re no longer trapped on a boat, so there’s gonna be plenty of people to pass the key around to for a break, even if they don’t manage to find a permanent solution to its curse.

If worst comes to worst, she’ll get back to earth and give Todd the key to hold onto.  He owes her a favour.

The one other _teeny_ tiny thing is that Margo knows one-hundred-percent for sure that the fairy queen is _pissed as hell_ at her.  Margo’d only given the loosest of excuses before jetting off on this voyage with Quentin and El –– anything to avoid being stuck here with her adolescent husband, trying to figure out ways to cut his dick off before he tries to get it inside her.  As it turns out, it was a good thing she _did_ go, because she’s one hundred percent sure at least one of those stupid men would be dead otherwise.

Still, though, the fairies ain’t happy.  

This is all too clear when their return to their own castle is met with a frisking-down by a particularly unpleasant fairy guard.  Usually, she’d endure this with maximum bitchiness and the knowledge she had nothing to hide.  But today is a little different.  Because around her neck, hanging on a worn-thin leather string and causing her current endless torment, is a heavy old golden key which _unmistakably_ clashes with her outfit.

Enough, apparently, that even a fairy guard notices.

“What’s _this?”_ he  asks, and yanks the key so hard the string breaks around Margo’s neck, sending it freely into his hand.   _Shit._

“Jewellery.  Ever heard of it?”  Margo tries for all the world to look as unimpressed as possible, arching an eyebrow even as her heart pounds staccato in her chest.  If the fairy queen finds out they lied about their trip, it could have dire consequences, let alone if she finds out they’re on this quest to bring magic back in ways which might interfere with her own evil agenda.  The guard doesn’t immediately recoil when he touches the key, though; doesn’t avert his gaze somewhere like he’s seeing a ghost of himself. Aiming for sarcastic even through her panic, Margo asks, “Well? Did my necklace cause some grand catastrophe, or can I have it back?”

The guard gives her an unpleasant look, and shoves the key back towards her all at once.  Margo slips her hand up an inch in the long sleeve of her dress just in time, grabs onto the key with the fabric instead of her bare skin, and sees –– nothing.  No cruel other Margo there to remind her of all the ways she’s always been too _much._ No tormentor, no visions.  

She curls the key up in the fabric of her sleeve, and her heart pounds.

“Great,” Margo says, shooting the most cloyingly fake, purse-lipped smile she possesses at the fairy guard.  “Now, if that’s _all_ the fuck you wanted, this _high queen_ would like to go to her _rooms_ and wash the stench of that damp-ass boat and a week without fresh water out of her hair.”

Margo’s dizzy as she raises her chin high and she strides her way past the fairy guard, although she’ll never admit it.  She’s pulling her trunk behind her. It rattles across the cobbled floors as she walks faster, faster, faster towards her rooms.

 _Okay,_ she thinks to herself as she walks, because Margo Hanson is a boss and she is organised and she always gives herself regular lowdowns of all the balls she’s juggling at any given time to make sure none of them drop, _two things._ One… the depression key, apparently, doesn’t affect fairies.  Holding it through the sleeve of her dress, now, she thinks they might have acci-fucking-dentally found a way to break the chain of the monster, and so long as they make goddamn sure _nobody else touches it now,_ they’re gonna be okay.

Two.  That was a big enough distraction that the guard didn’t think to check her trunk.  

And why would he?  One of the other fairies had watched her pack it before they set out on the journey, and so they knew that all she'd brought with her were a few elaborately bejewelled royal dresses, a dusty history book, and an innovative Fillorian dildo.  Just the essentials.

But, while sailing past the coast of her kingdom, Margo had noticed something.  In her damn right as High Queen, she’d had the Muntjac make just the tiniest stop.

It was even worth sacrificing her most fashionable seafaring dresses to make space.  Now, Margo Hanson has a trunk full of fairy eggs.

Where she comes from, they call that _leverage._

 

* * *

 

The night they arrive back at Whitespire, Quentin can’t sleep.

He tries.  Shit, does he try.  Tossing and turning in his dark room, counting back from a hundred in his mind, relaxing each part of his body from his toes up to his head in turn, breathing _in_ for seven and _pause_ for two and _out_ for nine.  All the tricks a lifetime of insomnia and therapy have taught him.  But none of it works.

He’d gotten spoiled again, on the boat.  It’s not exactly like he and El were curling up together every night in the same bed, but Quentin had kind of adopted Eliot’s room as his own too when he was under the influence of the key, and just never left.  They’d taken naps at different times, a few times, but sometimes together, and usually at least in the same room, and it all just began to remind Quentin so much of ––

 _Home._ That’s the word he keeps bumping up against.  

It’s ridiculous that he so easily came to think of just one stop on their questing journey as something like the solid base of his life.  But he did, and now he can’t help it. He is still very determinedly telling himself that he’ll get over it, given time.  But is it the end of the world if he indulges himself just a few more times before then?

Plus.  Well. It’s not just any night.  It may have been a few days since they started trading off the key with everyone else, a few days without Depression Quentin hovering over him, but even just the one day Quentin suffered through that was enough to have –– a lasting impression.  It’s not like he’s going to run out and hurt himself, and he _can_ feel the effects beginning to fade, but there wasn’t necessarily anything you could do to recover one hundred percent from something like that.  Because it wasn’t mindless torment; it was all the things Quentin is always actually thinking about himself, so deep down, just brought to the surface.

He’s still shaken.  Still feels fragile and a little bit all over the place, like he’s eighteen different versions of himself and none of them like each other and they’re refusing to line up.  It’s a feeling he’s familiar with, but not from the good times in his life.

So, he gives in.

He lights a candle, and creeps in his earth-pyjamas and bare feet through the corridors of the castle, all the way until he reaches Eliot’s rooms.

“Q?” asks Eliot, voice bleary, when he stirs at the noise of the intrusion.  Quentin feels a momentary stab of horror that Eliot was already sleeping and Q’s come and woken him up for no good reason when he _definitely_ needed the rest, but then Eliot’s sitting up, and he’s shirtless in bed, so Quentin’s mind goes blank immediately.  “Oh, is this a midnight booty call? By all means, hop in.”

“I honestly think I’m too tired to get it up right now if I tried,” Quentin says with a wry little huff of laughter, before catching himself self-conscious and smoothing back his hair nervously.  “Is that –– okay? I can go, if you want, it’s just that I.” Quentin pauses. Swallows. Looks at El’s face, so barely illuminated in the candlelight. “I didn’t really want to sleep alone, tonight.”

There’s a pause.

Eliot doesn’t say anything else.  But he reaches out, and pulls down the covers on the other side of the bed.  A perfect Quentin-sized space.

Quentin blows out his candle, swallows his feelings, and crawls into bed.  He tucks his feet under the sheets and only hesitates for a moment before rolling back further, pressing himself against Eliot’s body, letting one of El’s arms fall heavy around his waist.  The warmth of another body next to him feels grounding and safe. The fact that it’s Eliot’s body makes it a thousand times better.

It’s only natural, Quentin reminds himself, that after two years of living in each others’ pockets and at least a year of often sleeping so close that you couldn’t split the atoms between them, it would take a while to get out of the habit of wanting this.  He’ll manage eventually. They’ll remember their real lives, in this universe, and break out of these patterns.

But they don’t have to do it all at once, right?

They fall into their comfortable positions with familiar ease –– Quentin on his back with an arm under Eliot’s head, Eliot on his stomach with as many of his limbs as possible slung across Q’s body –– and Quentin drifts to sleep to the sounds of Eliot’s snuffling breaths, the smell of his hair, and the rhythm of his heartbeat drumming through both their bodies at once.

That night, Quentin sleeps long, and well, and doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment if u enjoyed the chap ! also let me know if there's anything you particularly wanna see in future chapters, and i'll try and work it in !!
> 
> the tumblr post for this fic is [here](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com/post/184835799059/dont-ruin-this-on-me), on my magicians blog,,, come scream with me about the show if u like :')


	3. towards the door we never opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back babie! the sexie stuff ramps up a notch in this chapter, so just be aware of that; if you don't wanna read sex, drop me a message and i'll let you know which lines to stop and start on? if u are into it, enjoy!
> 
> also a quick s3 recap: this ep opens with alice nearly dying from the magic transplant julia gave her. but if you’ll remember, julia came to fillory in this fic instead; so, alice is fine (well, freshly de-niffined and still having a bit of a breakdown, but not rejecting a transplant of goddess power at least), and julia’s elsewhere occupied, and we’re not gon worry about that whole plot. instead, we open on...

_Footfalls echo in the memory_  
_Down the passage which we did not take  
Towards the door we never opened._

–– T.S. Eliot

* * *

 

Eliot wakes late in the morning.  There’s no clock in sight, because Eliot’s room has a very carefully cultivated aesthetic and also because clocks in Fillory have an unhelpful habit of randomly jumping between hours whenever there’s a strong breeze outside, which makes them essentially useless, but he can tell the time of day by the angle of sunlight streaming into his room.  Eliot would always sleep through half the day if given the chance, but that’s not really conducive to running a kingdom, so he has very light drapes on his window which flood the room with light once the sun rises, and usually wake him not much later.

It reminds him a little uncomfortably of his childhood, rising with the sun, but Eliot’s dealing with those associations better and better each day.  The past two years of pastoral simplicity with Quentin and the quest have helped him more than he could ever explain; it’s all about rewriting old associations, right?

Still, this morning, he can tell by the sunlight that he’s slept longer than usual.  They got back really damn late the night before, so that makes sense. He thinks they deserved the sleep.  Eliot deserved it, and so did ––

So did Quentin Coldwater, who is currently passed out in Eliot’s arms.

El hadn’t even questioned it for a moment as he awoke; that’s how natural holding Quentin like this feels, now.  Quentin’s laying on his back, twisted at an odd angle to the mattress, and Eliot’s sprawled at his side, limps trapping Quentin’s body, chin resting atop Quentin’s soft hair.  He can feel the rise and fall of Quentin’s breathing, smell the salt of the seawater still caught in his hair.

As he stares down at the bare expanse of Quentin’s shoulder where it escapes from his loose pyjama shirt, so close that Eliot would barely have to twitch to be kissing it, he can’t help but think about how they haven’t hooked up since they returned from the mosaic.

It’s not really that odd; it’s only been about a week, which is not long at all to go without sex, especially with someone you’ve got something _regular_ with.  They mostly found their way into bed every three or four days –– or faster as the year wore on, if he’s honest –– at the mosaic, but there were certainly a few times where they were stressed or irritated or trying to prove a point, and didn’t sleep together for a week.  It’s definitely not unheard of.

This, though, feels different.  Because they’re _back._ They’re in the real world.

Eliot doesn’t want this to be something which doesn’t happen in the real world.  But the longer they wait, the more it feels like that.

And, honestly, he’d been sort of thinking _Quentin_ didn’t want that.  It makes sense. Quentin never showed any interest in guys before Eliot, did he?  Obviously he’s not totally straight –– Eliot’s not _dumb,_ and the enthusiasm Quentin shows for sucking his dick has to knock him at least one point up the Kinsey scale –– but that doesn’t mean he’ll want to actually choose a dude as a long term option, if presented with alternatives.  El’s been scared to make any moves, because of that. He tried on the boat, sure, while Quentin was being tormented by the depression monster, but he was at the end of his rope watching Quentin suffer and willing to try _anything_ at that point, even if it meant rejection.  

It was a wartime decision.  And it didn’t end up happening anyway, so it doesn’t count.

The thing is, though –– last night.

Last night, Quentin came crawling to Eliot’s bed because he needed comfort.  Not sex, sure, but he wanted _Eliot_ regardless.  Julia, his lifelong best friend, is staying in the castle only a few doors down.  Q could have used one of the keys in his possession to try and get home and see Alice, or even his dad, whoever.  But he didn’t. He came to El.

So, when Quentin’s eyes flutter open and he startles to find Eliot’s face barely an inch away, Eliot doesn’t draw back.  He smiles, and scratches his fingers light across Quentin’s chest, remembering about a hundred other mornings on an uncomfortable wooden palette with an itchy feather-stuffed mattress which felt just like this.

“Sleeping beauty, you’re awake!” he remarks, which makes Quentin let out a groan of laughter and cover his eyes.  “Half the morning’s gone already, you know. I was just about to try kissing you to see if you needed recovering from a magical coma.  Or possibly blowing you.  I always thought that story could use a little more panache.”

“Blowjobs count as _panache,_ now?” Quentin says groggily, wry even as he’s dragging himself out of the last clutches of sleep.

“I believe that’s the literal translation, yes.”

Quentin laughs, and then stretches against the sheets, all –– ugh, all warm and drowsy and just Eliot’s absolute kryptonite.  He would die if anyone found out that the great Eliot Waugh, famed hedonist, purveyor of kink and debauchery in all its furthest extremes, is _most_ undone by the simple domesticity of cuddling a sleepy nerd in Fillory-and-Further pyjamas.  It speaks so much to the parts of himself Eliot has tried so hard to bury; the parts Quentin is particularly good at bringing out without even trying.

“Well, in that case.  You could, uh, still try that, if you want,” Quentin suggests, charmingly awkward as ever.  Eliot stops breathing. Their limbs are still all tangled up together. Eliot’s resting on one elbow, so one of his hands can twist up to reach Quentin’s head.

He gently tucks Q’s messy hair behind his ear, the way Quentin usually does to himself.  Nudges his jawline with one prying knuckle, which Quentin tries to swat away.

Then, Quentin surges up and kisses him, and Eliot’s whole body sets on fire all at once.

“It’s been a really — _ah_ , really stressful couple days,” Quentin says against Eliot’s mouth, and the words sound like an offering.  He always does this, a _you look tense_ or a _want me to help you fall asleep?_ or a _we deserve some fun,_ like he thinks Eliot needs some sort of excuse to sleep with him.  As if Eliot hasn’t leapt at every crumb of a chance Quentin’s ever given him.

Maybe it’s actually Quentin who needs the excuses, Eliot thinks: that makes more sense, even if it does send an unpleasant tinge of _unwanted_ through him to think of it.

All that matters right now, though, is Quentin is offering, and Eliot intends to take.

“It has,” he agrees, and kisses and kisses and kisses him, mouths wide open and tongues licking, teeth nipping, lips dragging wet against each other as they get hotter and hotter in the tangled sheets, until Quentin is making noises like he just can’t breathe anymore.  Then Eliot drags himself away and descends his lips to Quentin’s neck.

“Oh, fuck, that feels like, really good,” Quentin gasps.  The words aren’t really for Eliot; El knows by now that Quentin just can’t help talking, even during sex, and half the time he’s got no clue what he just said if you test him on it.  But Eliot happily takes the feedback regardless and grins against Q’s throat, sucking hard at the sensitive skin and then biting the same place until Quentin says, “ _Eliot_.”

Eliot loses track of the time, after that.  All he knows is he’s kissing Quentin, and taking Quentin’s shirt off, and kissing his chest, and biting his nipples until Quentin starts babbling, and then they’re both mostly naked before Eliot can blink, and then they’re kissing some more, for a long time, the kisses more frantic and filthier by the second as Quentin rubs his heels against the back of Eliot’s thighs and Eliot thinks _maybe I don’t even need to fuck him this feels so fucking good maybe I could just stay here forever_ , and then ––

“Shit, do you have stuff in here?” Quentin asks suddenly, whipping his head against the sheets and glancing to the side of the bed, like he’s expecting to find a dorm-room nightstand with a naughty top drawer beside Eliot’s ornate, ocean-sized royal bed.

It’s a valid question, even if it does make Eliot laugh against Quentin’s skin.  One of the worst parts of first starting to hook up with your best friend in a roughly medieval version of a corrupt fantasy world is, well, that it isn’t ever as easy as grabbing silicone-based lube and a Magnum Trojan.

They got pretty inventive with cooking oil and disclosed more of their sexual histories than either was really comfortable with at the time, and managed.  Now, while they may still be fucking in a land without latex, they’re at least in Eliot’s own room, with all the accoutrements he’d asked the Castle Toiletrier for the moment he moved in.  El rolls off the bed and grabs a jar from his vanity under the huge window.

“Lavender-scented lubrication potion, fit for a king,” he announces proudly, standing naked beside the bed with one hip cocked and rather enjoying the way Quentin stares up and down his whole body. “Better than cooking oil, I swear.  No condoms, still, but it’s not like we’ve never—“

“No, yeah, that’s fine,” Q agrees quickly, and pulls Eliot back onto the bed.  Charmingly shameless in the bright sunlight, Quentin drags Eliot’s fingers between his legs and bosses Eliot into getting him ready, arches his head back into the pillows and gasps when Eliot eventually gets his dick inside him.

Usually, Eliot reserves a slow, lazy, rolling sort of fun for morning sex, but today feels different.  He’s too keyed up, too uncertain of everything since they came back to these lives, these people they used to be.  Everything feels starkly illuminated in the sunbeams streaking the bed. It makes him feel _seen_ , like the painful pit of vulnerability inside him will be on full display if he slows down for even a moment.  So instead, he’s just desperate for it, pushing both Quentin’s hands into the pillows up above his head, spreading his own fingers over them and tracing between his knuckles as he fucks him hard.

Eliot thinks about Quentin’s hands a lot.  In many ways, Q looks soft and boyish and the way his every emotion plays out on his face makes it easy to think of him as younger than he is, but he has a man’s hands.  They’re strong, and after a couple of years of working on the mosaic, calloused too; they always feel good against Eliot’s skin, and they’re always satisfying to press down like this too, keeping Quentin pinned tight in that way which always drives him mad, makes him squirm down against Eliot.

“Shit, El, El, Eliot, _fuck_ I don’t even know how you do that, it feels so good,” Quentin gasps against Eliot’s clavicle, lips wet and breath hot every time his mouth brushes El’s skin.  Eliot’s going fucking insane. He fucks Quentin harder, reaching down to take hold of one of his thighs in a bruising grip to tug him even closer, and Quentin lets out a noise like all the breath’s been punched out of him, then laughs, high pitched and giddy like he’s feeling so intense that it just needs to come out in some sort of way –– Quentin often laughs like that during sex, and Eliot always loves it.  “Fuck, fuck, _Eliot_ –– hah! –– El, oh my god, that’s so good, that’s so ––”

“You talk so much,” Eliot gasps against his skin, though it’s far from a new observation.

“Yeah,” Quentin agrees, sounding absolutely _wrecked,_ and then, when Eliot starts losing the rhythm of his fucking, teetering right on the edge: “Are you g––gonna come, El, are –– _ah,_ are you coming?”

And Eliot tries really, really hard not to remember — not to think about how last time they did _this_ he’d totally lost himself and in the heat of the moment he’d said — he’d admitted ––

 _I love you._ This time, at least, he only thinks it, doesn’t say it out loud.

But the rush of heat the thought brings to his body swells through him like a physical sensation, and with Quentin writhing and sweaty and gorgeous underneath him, that’s enough to send Eliot over the edge into ecstasy.  His whole body bows as he pushes as deep as he can into Quentin and comes, gasping at the break of pressure, the way his whole _life_ seems to explode right out of him.  His eyes screw closed, and his lips land on Quentin’s neck, and it’s all Eliot can do right then to feel the tingling of every inch of his body, and try to remember how to breathe.

Unfortunately, as he lays there, pressed on top of Quentin and feeling Q’s hands playing in his hair, El’s traitorous mind won’t shut up.

Because –– since when did Eliot give his _feelings_ permission to start intruding on casual sex with his friend?  Just because he loves Quentin — has, certainly, loved him in some ways ever since they met, but also came to realise so much more of how precious Quentin was to him and how well they fit together and definitely fell _in_ love with him this past year — doesn’t mean he has to go thinking about it all the time.  Eliot is great at separating sex and love. He’s great at not saying his feelings. He’s been doing it his whole life.  

So why do the words keep trying to bubble out of him _now?_ He didn’t tell them they could, and frankly, he’s not pleased about it.  He needs to have a stern chat with his feelings, and tell them this is _not_ how they do things in _his_ body, thank you very much.

It is possibly a slightly embarrassing gap of time later that Eliot remembers where he is.

“Give me a second,” he says weakly, panting as he tries to catch his breath, because Quentin still hasn’t come and he’s still wriggling on the mattress, cock stiff and red against his belly, while he stares up at Eliot with those huge expressive eyes.  Eliot rolls off him to land on his back on the bed, feeling like he might pass out. “I’ll blow you as soon as I can move my body again.”

Quentin laughs, joyful and bright, as he rolls over too and leans into Eliot, chin pushing up.  “I’ll take that as a compliment, then. It’s fine, I’m like, I’m right there, just –– kiss me.”

So Eliot does, because his tongue still works even if his limbs don’t; kisses Quentin deep while Quentin jerks off, pressed against Eliot’s body, and doing all the cute little _Quentin sex things_ which Eliot conjures up in his dreams every night by now, like constantly trying to press closer to Eliot in tiny jerky motions, and curling his toes against El’s leg, and making all the softest little noises in his throat.

Then Quentin goes, “ _Ah,_ Eliot, Eliot, shit,” and comes.  He’s exceedingly beautiful, even when he scrunches his face up like that.

“Careful of the silk,” Eliot admonishes, swiping a drop of Quentin’s come off the sheets and shoving it towards Quentin’s mouth just to see how Q licks his finger.  “We’re not fucking on burlap anymore.”

Quentin rolls his eyes and lets Eliot’s fingertip drop out of his mouth; it’s a miracle how he can look so bratty and so _hot_ at the same time.  “Our sheets at the mosaic were not _burlap,_ El.”

“Well, they might as well have been.  I haven’t been evolved to handle anything less than 600 thread count.”

“You are such a drama queen,” Quentin tells him, but kisses Eliot once more anyway.  And then again, and again, and again, hard presses of his lips which feel like fond admonition, and then turn into just plain fond, and then they’re both laughing when Quentin reaches down and squeezes Eliot’s ass with one strong hand, a joke between just the two of them.

They end up staying in bed a little while longer.

 

* * *

 

Unfortunately, the kingdom eventually calls, secret fairy dictators and convoluted escape plots and magical quests and all.  Eliot puts on an elaborate white silk outfit and Quentin pulls back on his clothes from the boating quest –– and seriously, he’s so fucking cute in it, Eliot thinks it’s a crime he doesn’t wear Fillorian clothes more often here, the _things_ Eliot would do to get him in one of the embroidered velvet things the royal tailors are always coming out with.  But that’s a thought for another day. He makes sure neither of them have sex hair, and they set out to find Margo.

It’s noteworthy, Eliot thinks, that as usual, neither of them mention the sex they just had once they’re done having it.

They find Bambi in the fairy-proof corridor, ready to start their convoluted plan.  She has her trunk with her, and they tell Tick to say they’ve all come down with chicken pox, and then they head back to earth.

 

* * *

  

The key deposits them back through the clock in the Physical Kids Cottage, thankfully once again in the right fucking time period.  Quentin swiftly escorts Poppy, who they’ve given a one-time-only offer of a lift back to earth, out of the cottage front door; let her go fend for herself like all the other newly liberated students of the now shut-down Brakebills, Eliot thinks; she’s not a physical kid, she’s got no reason to stick around the cottage.  She’s lucky they didn’t just abandon her on the Fillorian shoreline. Quentin looks sickly relieved when she’s gone, resting his head back against the door for a moment with his eyes closed and sighing, his shoulders visibly losing some of their tension. He then immediately goes to put the carefully-wrapped Depression Key with the other ones they’ve found so far, which are all sort of being left around on the cottage’s dining table, for lack of a better thing to do with them.  

Eliot could stare at him a while longer, but Margo elbows him sharply, so he snaps back to attention and helps her hide a shitload of fairy eggs in the reading nook.  As far as Eliot’s aware, with Brakebills shut down, nobody is currently living here other than _Todd._ Even if they were, though, this is the Physical Kids Cottage –– thanks to Eliot’s own influence, he’s sure nobody would dare try and _study_ around here, and certainly not sober enough that they’d have any awareness of their surroundings.  The reading nook is probably the safest hiding place in the world.

“What if queen bitch doesn’t buy our sick day?” Eliot mutters, as they close up the doors together.

“Tick’s a crafty son of a bitch,” Margo says, which is not something Eliot’s actually ever thought about their weird royal advisor before, but okay.  “He’s got our backs.”

Eliot would have more to say about that, except just then, the door flies open, and into the cottage comes bustling ––

Fen, covered in New York tourist apparel, and Fray with a sour expression on her face, and Todd hovering behind them like a puppy.

Oh.  Right.  Shit.

He is definitely the worst husband and father in the world, right?  Because it’s been two whole years since he saw them, and Eliot, honestly, had barely even remembered they were back on earth.  Had barely even thought about reuniting with them.  He thought about them while he and Quentin were at the mosaic, of course he did, but only mostly at first, and since then he's had so much on his mind that he deleted that whole aspect of his life, because he didn't have  _space_ for it.  Suddenly, the space has to be made, because they're right fucking there, and it all comes flooding back.

“Eliot!” Fen squeals, the moment she spots him, and rushes over.

She looks like she’s about to say something else, actually.  But in that moment, Eliot is overcome with a wave of –– just _fondness._ He’s still wearing his wedding ring, after two years away; he even kept it on after the point where it sort of began to felt like they might never see the people from their old lives again.  Because while he may never have thought of Fen as his wife in the traditional ways, he did, at some point, begin to think of her as _family._

He wasn’t expecting to get emotional over seeing her again, especially after slightly erasing her from his mind the last two years, but in this moment right now, there’s nothing he can think to do except swoop her up in a huge, tight hug.

“It’s so fucking good to see you, wifey,” he mumbles to her, before realising she’s sort of squeaking in his tight hold and setting her back on her feet again.  She looks confused but rather pleased, not used to such easy affection from him, as she adjusts her hair and grins.

“Oh!  It’s nice to see you, too.”  She, of course, thinks it’s only been a few days.  He’ll have time to explain his unexpectedly long detour to her at some other point.  Probably. “We had the most _wonderful_ adventure while you were gone!  We went to the Square of Time, where nobody sleeps, and it’s always light.”

“A man urinated next to me,” Fray interrupts, arms crossed across her chest.  Fen pretends not to hear her.

“We saw _bards_ perform on the Broad Way, and we tried a delicacy called _pizza–”_ She pronounces it delicately and just a little bit wrong, as her eyes mist over and she presses a hand to her chest, “At an eatery that was _family_ style.”

Eliot can’t help the amused smile twitching around his lips as he says, “Well, it sounds like you’ve had a most excellent time,” and he’s even a little bit fond as he adds, “Hi, Todd.”

“Hi dad!” Todd says, before turning bright red and stuttering, “I –– _dude,_ I mean, hi, E-Eliot, hi Eliot.”

Quentin chooses this moment to reappear from the other room, wandering in to stand by Eliot’s shoulder, stifling a laugh into his hand and shooting a _look_ El’s way which says he _definitely_ heard the dad comment.   _Shut up,_ Eliot wants to say, and also,  _you're the only one who should be calling me daddy,_ but he resists the comment, as they're in company.

Meanwhile, Fen suddenly looks even brighter as she says, “King Quentin!”

Eliot has, actually, always privately thought Fen and Quentin would get along, and it’s a shame they haven’t had reason to spend much time together.  They’re the two most pure-hearted people he knows, with stubborn streaks a mile wide, and, of course, they care more about Fillory than probably everyone else in the universe combined.  Maybe they should all get drunk together one night, Eliot thinks, before suddenly having a horrifying stab of jealousy at the idea of the two of them bonding and Quentin probably developing a crush the way he does on any beautiful smart girl who stands still long enough, and nixes the idea.  

Quentin, who never got used to being addressed as a king, looks a little red-cheeked as he waves.  “Hey, Fen. Uh, and hey, Fray, right?”

Fray just shoots him a withering look.  Fray, who, Eliot is ashamed to admit, he thought about less than almost anyone else during his time away.  That almost definitely does make him the worst father in the world, he thinks, even if he’d technically only known her for like a week before being transported back to the past.  

He feels even worse about his parenting when it’s Quentin who first asks, “So, Fray, did you enjoy Time Square?”

Fray looks at them with her permanently aloof gaze.  “I had very low expectations of this world. It hasn’t managed to meet a single one of them.”

Eliot could say the same of _her_ homeland, but, like, okay.

“Well, we’ll just have to keep trying until we find something you do enjoy, then,” he decides, trying to sound bright.  Positivity is against his very nature, but he’s trying. “I do _want_ you to have a good time here, you know.”

At that, Fray looks almost, for a second, like she might be experiencing a human emotion.  “I believe that, at least,” she says. Score. “I may grow to despise you less, with time.”

Fen swoons like that’s the sweetest thing any girl has ever said to their father.  Quentin stifles another laugh behind Eliot’s shoulder. Eliot mostly feels like he needs a whole bottle of wine and a lie down.

Nobody told him that getting his arranged wife, magically aged-up and brainwashed daughter, and the friend-with-benefits he’s desperately in love with all in one room would cause such stress to his delicate constitution.

Luckily, Margo chooses that moment to steal Todd away so they can fill him in, and they’re back to just dealing with their fairy hostages again.  Honestly, the crazed dictator secretly running their land is _so_ much easier to deal with than Eliot’s emotions are.  


 

* * *

 

Eliot sort of wishes Fen and Fray would stick around a little longer, but it turns out Fen’s got another outing planned for the two of them –– leaving Todd behind this time, as it’s _mother daughter bonding,_ apparently –– and they jet off again pretty soon with just a kiss to Eliot’s cheek (Fen) and a withering scowl (Fray).  Well, he thinks, maybe that’s for the best. He can only deal with so many things at one time; his complex feelings on being a newfound father can wait until after he’s saved his entire kingdom from sinister control.

Then, like this whole place is one big revolving door, Alice Quinn comes trotting in.  She’s got an armful of books, and heads right for the table; maybe Eliot was wrong about Todd being the only one living here.  Then she nearly bumps into Quentin, and the two of them do an awkward little dance around each other with both their hands raised up to their shoulders like they’ll physically burst into flames if they touch, which is –– funny, but also exhausting to watch when Eliot even begins to wonder what the dynamic between the two of them is these days.

“Let’s make use of the earthly amenities, while we’re here,” he suggests to Margo, thinking longingly of his old room upstairs, where nothing stressful _ever_ happened.  “I’m going to take a shower.  Luxurious though they are, I’m not convinced I ever _actually_ get clean in the castle baths.”

He disappears upstairs, where he spends thirty minutes washing his hair, and _doesn’t_ think about _anything_ in his clusterfucked spider’s web of a life.

 

* * *

 

When Eliot comes back down, hair dry and newly dressed in his favourite waistcoat and dark paisley shirt, someone’s brought back subs for lunch.  Alice and Quentin are both eating already, sat a few seats apart at the table as they pour over some old books in silence. The rest of the sandwiches aren’t labelled, and El isn’t really fussy about food, so he reaches for one at random.

“Don’t, that one’s got cilantro,” Quentin says idly, without looking up from his book.  He gestures vaguely with the hand not turning the pages. “You’ll hate it. Try the one on the blue plate, it has, uh, that one white thing you like, what’s it called.”

“Cocaine?” Eliot suggests lightly, although his heart is thumping at how easily Quentin remembers these things about Eliot, how he tries to take care of El in these little ways.  

“Ha, ha.  No, you twot, that cheese thing.  The one I think tastes like—“

“Grilled car tyres, ah, of course.  You know, Quentin, it won’t hurt you to say the _word_ halloumi.”

Quentin scrunches up his nose like he thinks it actually might.

Eliot tastes the suggested sandwich and sits down.  It _is_ delicious.  After a couple of bites, he’s bored of the silent studying in the room and feels like being a bit of a shit, so he plucks a piece of halloumi out from his sandwich with two fingers and dangles it right in front of Quentin’s mouth like he’s trying to feed it to him.  

“Eliot!” Quentin complains, recoiling with a little scrunched expression which makes Eliot laugh, even as Quentin is shoving his hands away.

“Just have a taste!  I’m trying to refine your palate.  It’s such a tough task, I might make it my thesis project.  If school ever re-opens, that is.”

“Quit it, or I’ll start spiking everything I cook with cilantro.”

“You don’t cook,” Eliot points out lightly, but he drops the halloumi back onto his own plate regardless.  “What did you get?”

Quentin, who seems mostly still invested in his book, holds up his sandwich with one hand instead of answering.  Eliot leans over and takes a bite off the end. Turkey mayo.

“You’re so basic,” he tells Q fondly. “You’re lucky it’s part of your charm.”

Quentin does laugh at that, looking up and meeting Eliot’s eyes.  The warmth of his gaze sort of makes Eliot want to go drink three bottles of chilled white wine in one go and then crawl under a mountain of blankets for the rest of his natural life.

Then, Eliot looks to the side, and sees Alice is staring at them.

He decides to go finish his sandwich in another room.

 

* * *

 

“Pick it up pick it up pick it _up_ you motherfuckers, pick it up ––”

This is what Penny Adiyodi’s life has been reduced to.  Or, un-life –– afterlife –– whatever. He doesn’t care about the terminology, he cares about the fact that all his endlessly astrally projecting ass can do right now is hover invisibly over a fucking magic key, _waiting_ for one of the dumbass he loathes to call friends to pick it up so he can _talk_ to them.

He is literally hovering over Quentin Coldwater’s shoulder, watching him silently eat sandwiches with his ex-girlfriend in the most pathetically awkward tableau ever, chanting in his ear to pick up the key even though he knows Quentin can’t hear him.  Maybe Penny really did properly die, after all, because this sure seems like hell.

It takes another _hour,_ and several other people wandering in and out of the room without ever going near the key, before Coldwater finally closes his dumb fucking book and goes to take inventory of the keys or whatever, and touches the truth key.

Penny immediately leaps into his line of sight and says, “Dude, don’t hang up.”

Quentin startles and immediately falls backwards over a chair, landing on his ass with a pathetic little shout.

“Seriously, dude?” Penny asks, while Quentin picks himself, groaning, up from the floor.  “Listen, I don’t have time for this right now. You need to help Kady.”

“Kady?” Quentin repeats dumbly, inspecting his own elbow for a bruise like a _baby._ “What’s going on with Kady?”

“What's _going on_ with Kady is the doctors at rehab think she’s gone nuts, ‘cus they saw her talking to me while I was all invisible and shit.  She kinda like, said she was gonna kill me, so they think she’s a _danger,_ or some bullshit like that _._ They’ve locked her up in the psych ward.  We need to get her the fuck out.”

Penny and Kady may be on shit terms right now, but Penny can’t just leave her in there, not when it’s his own fault she’s locked up.  And no matter how much Quentin drives Penny crazy, Penny knows he’ll help.  He’s all about helping people, after all, and Kady’s part of his little questing gang whether he likes it or not.

“Okay,” says Quentin, rubbing a hand over his face.  “Okay. We’ll, uh –– we’ll figure something out."

 

* * *

 

A rescue mission for Kady was _not_ where Quentin thought this day was going, nor is he sure it’s something they really have time for, but he ignores that and rallies the troops best they can.

Alice doesn’t particularly seem like she wants to be involved, but she’s _there,_ reading her own book at the opposite end of the table to where the rest of them are planning, so Q figures they can rope her in if they need her.  And _actually_ with him, he’s got Eliot and Margo, and they can all see Penny so long as they all keep a finger on the key.  Even Todd is hanging around in the background of the room, sort of pretending to inspect the bookshelf but mostly keeping his body angled towards them like he wants to join in.  Quentin isn’t counting him as part of the team, though. It’s –– well, it’s just that it’s Todd.

So.  That’s their dream team, and they set about coming up with a plan.

Here’s the thing.  Krick Memorial Hospital is where they have Kady, locked up in the mental health ward.  Quentin is -- familiar with it. Intimately.

Quentin has been institutionalised four times.  The first time, when he was sixteen, after he’d tried to –– well, the first time he tried, they took him to a regular hospital to treat him physically, and then transferred him to a New Jersey mental health clinic near his dad’s house for his extended treatment.  The second and the fourth times, he was at Midtown Clinic in New York for all of it, because he’d moved to the city by then. But the third time, his worst attempt, when he was twenty one, they’d kept him in the mental health ward of Krick Memorial for two weeks.

It’s been a long time since then, even longer to Quentin than to the rest of the world, but he remembers every detail of it.  It was a pretty good hospital, all things considered; being shut up in a weird sterile ward like that is never exactly fun, but they really did help him when he was in an incredibly shitty place.  If Kady were actually going nuts, he’d think she was in the right place.

But she’s not, so it isn’t fair.

“Okay, Kady’s in the high risk ward, down this hallway,” Penny says, gesturing to the piece of paper with the hospital blueprint they’re planning on, though Quentin has already marked an _X_ on the right ward before Penny points it out.  “The room is locked, so’s the ward, and there’s a guard station at the end of the corridor, down here.”

Quentin lets him explain this, for the benefit of everyone who _doesn’t_ happen to know this place from personal experience, and marks _X_ s down on the paper in the appropriate places as they all gather around the table.  He draws a couple of little guards with guard hats which look more like the Fillorian palace guards than anything from earth.  

Eliot snorts as he watches over Q’s shoulder, and Quentin whacks him in the stomach without looking.  

“Two years, you’d think you’d have gotten better at art,” Eliot whispers, and Quentin rolls his eyes.  

“Tiles are a lot easier to work with, fucking sue me,” he mumbles, adding another little doodled guard.  He doesn’t think they’re _that_ bad.

“Okay, so we’ve got a whole station of presumably hunky bodyguard types watching the doors, and a bunch of passcodes locking everything else down; unlike our bank heist, we don’t have magic to do the heavy lifting.  How are we sneaking past this security?” Margo asks, arms crossed over her chest.

Quentin sighs, feeling a little heavy as he looks down at the ward diagram and remembers when this could have been _him,_ except that he really needed to be there, and nobody was coming to save him anyway.

“We’re not,” he says.  Eliot is still leaning on his shoulder, just to keep a hold of the truth key so they can all see Penny, but it’s a little hard for Quentin to focus with Eliot so close.  He’s warm and he looks great in the earth clothes he’d changed into, and he smells delicious, like his favourite shampoo. Quentin tries not to breathe too deeply or think about how close up he’s gotten to smell Eliot before, and adds, “They’re going to bring her to us.”

Margo raises an eyebrow.  Even Todd, who has fully given up on pretending to look at the bookcase in the background, opens his mouth questioningly.

“By law, if they want to hold you against your will for more than 15 days, they have to bring in outside doctors to certify the diagnosis,” Quentin explains.  He tries not to notice the looks he gets from the other people in the room for knowing that. “So _we_ are going to be those doctors.”

“Won’t they need to verify credentials and shit?” Penny asks, seeming doubtful, as he always is of Quentin’s plans.  Quentin wrinkles his nose.

“It’s like, a state hospital,” he says, with the air of someone intimately familiar with the difference.  “Their computer system’s ancient, and they’re overworked. Trust me, we’ll be long gone before they have any clue we weren’t supposed to be there.”

“Should I be worried that you know so much about this?” Penny asks.

Quentin –– uh, he doesn’t quite know how to respond to that.  He’s not exactly been private about his past, but Eliot is the only person in this room he’s really, actually told about his time in institutions.  But Penny doesn’t need to be _worried._ They’re keeping Kady locked up because they think she’s a danger to others, but Quentin was only ever a danger to myself.

“This is about Kady, so will you just trust me?  This’ll work.”

“Who’s being the doctors, then?” Eliot asks, moving the conversation along, one of his hands squeezing where it’s braced Quentin’s shoulder.  “I always thought I’d look dashing in a white coat.”

He _definitely_ would, Quentin thinks to himself slightly hysterically, before clearing his throat.

“Uh, not those kind of doctors.  A suit would probably do. But sure, either you or Margo would work.  Probably two of us need to go in, and one needs to be me so I can take a key-card off someone ––”

“Have I mentioned lately how much I _love_ your little kleptomaniac tendencies?” Eliot asks, and Quentin rolls his eyes.

“ _Anyway,_ one needs to be me, and then obviously Penny will come, but, uh, nobody else will be able to see him, so.  And then whoever isn’t pretending to be a doctor should probably come anyway and wait outside, because there’s, like, an almost definite chance we’re gonna need help with the getaway once Kady walks out of there.”

“This plan sounds vague as shit, Coldwater,” Penny says, which Quentin thinks is kinda rude because nobody _else_ had any ideas on where to even begin with breaking her out, but okay.  “But whatever, I guess we don’t got a choice, so. Let’s go do it.”

Not exactly an inspiring speech to send them all off, but Quentin figures it will do, and awkwardly scrambles out of his chair to go and get changed.

 

* * *

 

Quentin puts on his only suit and ties his hair back in a little ponytail to try and seem a bit more professional.  He tries not to react when Eliot reaches back and tugs on his ponytail, in that way that’s more force of habit than anything else, because Quentin got in the habit of wearing his hair up at the mosaic and Eliot had always ended up playing with it.  Quentin’s been wearing his hair down a lot since they got back, which –– he could probably come up with a lot of deep thoughts on that about how a lot of his old insecurities have come flooding back and how he never felt the need to hide his face in a world that was just him and Eliot but does now, but, like, this isn’t the time to be thinking about any of that.

Eliot looks obscenely good in the navy blue suit he’s put on, but that’s just Eliot.  No surprises there.

Alice had declined coming –– she either has some dramatic thing of her own going on or really just doesn’t want to be around Quentin, but he figures they’ll be fine without her and it’s better not to push either way, so that’s okay.  So it’s just Margo, Quentin and Eliot who are left, standing around on the street outside the hospital while they wait for Penny to get back from making sure the coast is clear for them to start their plan.

Eliot has a cigarette lit, which at least gives them a bit more of a reason to be huddled around the street entrance of the hospital without actually going inside, Quentin thinks.

“Funny bumping into Fen and Fray this morning,” he remarks, just making smalltalk, while Margo has sidled off to flirt with someone else stood in the smoking area.  “I’d sort of forgotten they were on earth instead of Fillory.”

“I’d sort of forgotten they existed at all,” says Eliot dramatically.  Quentin rolls his eyes.

“No, you hadn’t.”  As if Quentin hadn’t noticed the care Eliot always took with his wedding ring, even after two years at the mosaic, working with their hands all day every day; as if he never spotted the look in Eliot’s eyes when they saw parents with new babies in the local village.

“Okay, no, I didn’t,” Eliot concedes, sighing out cigarette smoke.  “I didn’t exactly think about them _much,_ though, while we were away.  I suppose I missed Fen, but not Fray.  I went away for two years and didn’t even miss my own daughter.  So that most certainly makes me the worst father to ever exist.”

As always, Eliot is trying to sound light, but Quentin’s heart clenches anyway.  He’s really not -- sure what the etiquette is, in this situation in general or _ever_ between the two of them, but he reaches out and rests a hand on Eliot’s arm, some small show of comfort.  

“You are not.  Seriously, Eliot, you’re not.  You basically just met her, and she’s -- well, she’s kind of a _lot,_ with the whole raised-and-brainwashed-by-fairies thing.  I don’t think anyone could blame you for not, like, longing to see her all her time.”  He pauses, and then says, because it’s true, “I think you’re actually a really good dad, in your own way.  You care about her enough to feel bad, at least. And if, or, or _when_ you get a chance to like, parent her properly -- you’ll be amazing.”

Quentin doesn’t say the rest of it: that he knows Eliot will be a great dad because he knows the power of Eliot’s nurturing.  He knows how wonderful Eliot is when he decides to care for them, decides to look after them, because he’s spent the last two years, at least, looking after _Quentin._

Eliot doesn’t look convinced, and he would maybe say something else, but all of a sudden Penny’s appearing back in front of them and the moment for quiet conversation is gone.  Eliot stubs out his cigarette, Margo abandons the guy she’d been talking to, and Penny says, “Yeah, all good, it’s go time,” so they head inside.

In the elevator, Quentin reminds Margo, “So you’re gonna wait at the end of the hall, just past the guard’s station, yeah?  There should be, like, a waiting area you can sit in so you don’t seem too suspicious, but just keep an eye out for trouble, and me and El will try and get in and out as quick as we can.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll sit around and look pretty and inevitably save your asses when it all goes wrong, got it.”

The elevator dings.  They’re at their floor.  The doors open, and Margo files out, followed by Eliot, followed by Penny even though Quentin’s the only one who knows that because he’s the one holding the key, followed by ––

“Quentin?”

The voice is familiar, and Quentin startles halfway out of the elevator.  Margo and El are already a few feet away, Penny lingering impatiently beside them, so it’s none of his friends who said his name.  Instead, Quentin finds himself stood in the path of someone he hadn’t even considered he might bump into.

“Dr Wexler,” Quentin says, clearing his throat and trying to not let on the rush of panic going through him.  

Stood a few feet away, a stack of manila folders clutched to her chest and surprise in her eyes, is Quentin’s old therapist.  It’s been about two years here since their appointments stopped, more than four years for _him,_ but of course she recognises him.  He saw her every single week for his last two years of college.  And they’d gotten along well; she really liked his magic tricks.

Oh, Quentin thinks: shit.  He’d assumed nobody from the general staff here would recognise him -- he was barely here for a couple of weeks and it was _years_ ago -- but he’d completely forgotten that Dr Wexler works here, too.  He always saw her at her private offices when they had sessions, but it had been this hospital who sent him to her after his stay here –– because she works here too, of course she does.

“I thought that was you.  Been a long time since we saw you here.”  Her voice is soft, careful, that way most therapists’ are, especially when they think something might be wrong with you.  Then, before Quentin can sort out _anything_ in his head, she asks him gently, “Are you checking in?”

Because, right.  What other logical explanation is there for someone like Quentin being up in the mental health ward?  She knows he’s been here before, and in similar other places; more importantly, she _definitely_ knows he wasn’t training to be a psychiatrist two years ago, so there’s no way his cover will work now.

He tries hard not to glance over her shoulder to where his friends are waiting, but it’s difficult.  The longer they’re here, the riskier this plan gets, and Dr Wexler being here has absolutely scuppered his part in it.

“Uh, no, no, not this time,” he assures her, although his brain is blue-screening on an actual good excuse for why he _is_ here.  “Just, uh, I was actually just visiting someone in the hospital and I got off on the wrong floor, guess it’s like -- autopilot.”

He laughs weakly, and she smiles at him, stepping closer.

“In that case, I’m glad to hear it.  I hope you’re doing well, Quentin.”

“I am,” he half-lies, because, well, depression isn’t his main problem anymore so that’s probably _better_ from her point of view, although the fact that the fate of all of magic and possibly the whole world too accidentally rests on his shoulders is a bit of a bummer.

“Well, that’s good to hear.  I have to run, I have a consult coming in, but it was nice to see you, Quentin.”

“You, too.”  And then, a flash of a thought striking him, he offers her a handshake.  A normal friendly gesture when bumping into an old doctor of yours, completely.  And then his other hand claps down on her elbow, also totally friendly. And then, as that hand draws back, it glances over the pocket of her jacket, and her keycard tucks into his palm, then up into his sleeve.  He drops the handshake. It all only took a second.

It’s probably a bit bad to steal from your therapist, but he thinks she wouldn’t be too angry.  She always did like his sleight of hand.

Anyway, she hasn’t noticed a thing, and he’s sure she’ll just think she dropped her ID when she figures it out later.  She gives him one last wave before hurrying away, and then he waits until she’s disappeared down the corridor before he rushes over to El, Margo and Penny.

“What the fuck was that?” Penny hisses incredulously, gesturing down the corridor after Dr Wexler.

“Uh, a change of plans,” Quentin says.  He’s pretty sure they heard everything that was said, anyway, but explains weakly, “Turns out I kind of, uh, know someone here, which –– was a _total_ accident, but, yeah, I definitely can’t go in there now.  She said she had a consult coming so she might even be the one we’re going to meet, and she _definitely_ knows my story doesn’t hold up.  We don’t have time to make Margo an ID –– El, you’ll have to go alone, is that okay?”

Eliot’s looking at him with worried eyes, but says, “Yeah, Q.  I can probably swing that.”

They really hadn’t gone over this enough, Quentin thinks –– getting in will still be easy enough, but Eliot will have to _actually_ conduct the interview without raising suspicion, and they’d been pretty much relying on the fact that Quentin would know what to say, what questions to ask, because he’d been in similar spaces before.  Still, Eliot is a master of charm and improvisation, so it’ll _probably_ be okay, Quentin tells himself, it _probably_ will.

“Oh!” Quentin remembers all at once, and slips the key card back out of his sleeve, shoving it towards Eliot.  “I, uh, took her keycard. So, just get through the interview, and give this to Kady, and it’ll still work out.”

“You stole from your shrink?” Margo remarks, one eyebrow raising like she’s maybe kind of impressed.  “Props, Coldwater, that’s pretty cool.”

“They’ll just give her a new ID, it’s not like it’s a big deal,” Quentin says weakly, more justifying it to himself than to Margo, and smiles when Eliot takes the keycard.

“Okay, I seriously don’t care about any of this, can we hurry this the fuck up?” Penny says.  Quentin rolls his eyes, and shoves the key towards Eliot, too. No longer needing to be the one who can see Penny is maybe the upside of not being able to go in.

“Okay, yeah, go, go,” Q says, his hand lingering on Eliot’s elbow as he gives him a pat and pushes him towards the ward in one swoop.  “I’ll wait with Margo.”

He must still look worried, because before they go, Eliot steps close for one short second, and says lowly, “It’ll be okay, Quentin.  We’ve got this.”

Then, he and Penny are gone, and it’s just Quentin and his anxiety.

Well, and Margo, who says, “Well, let’s go find the waiting room.  I can feel the stack of _Us Weekly_ s calling to me from here.  I’m gonna make you take _all_ the trashy quizzes.”  

 

* * *

 

They’re three magazines in –– Quentin has found out that he’s more merlot than rosé and learned what’s in the bag of a model he’s never heard of –– when, all of a sudden, Eliot appears in the doorway.

“All good?” Quentin asks quickly, leaping out of his seat.

“All good,” Eliot agrees, although his voice is a little higher pitched than usual.  “Kady has the security badge and should be walking out of here any minute, but, um, I suggest we get going right the fuck now.  Come on, kids, chop chop.”

“I -- uh, okay,” Quentin says, already being ushered out of the door by Eliot’s waving hands, Margo close on their heels.  They make it down the hall and into the elevator before –– “Uh, El, are those _alarms_ going off?”

“Doesn’t matter!” Eliot says shrilly, and slams the button for the ground floor.

Well, then.

They wait on the street outside the hospital, and sure enough, Kady does come bursting out of the doors just a few minutes after them.  Quentin decides to ignore the details of whatever disaster clearly just happened up there; it worked, and that’s the most he can ask for these days.  They all bundle into the nearest cab at full speed, Quentin carefully takes back the truth key, and everything’s worked out. Kady looks like a bit of a mess, but probably better than Quentin ever has after two weeks in a mental health ward, and she is at least happy to be out of there.

Well, he thinks.  Therapy hasn’t helped her spiky personality, so he’s still pretty much terrified of her, and doesn’t ask.

The second they’re back at the cottage, Margo asks, “Can we get the fuck back to Fillory and hope my kingdom didn’t blow up while we took this little day trip, now?”

Quentin thinks that sounds reasonable enough.

 

* * *

 

The second they’re back in the castle and step into the throne room, Tick Pickwick comes rushing up to them.

“Thank Ember and Umber, you're back!” he says, looking both like he means it entirely and simultaneously doesn’t mean it at all, a peculiar talent that only Tick seems to possess.

“Uh,” says Quentin, looking between Eliot and Margo in front of him, and then to Tick, and then around the castle floor.  “Uh, Tick? Why, um, is the entire castle covered in feathers?”

Which is how they are greeted first with the news that chicken pox is _definitely_ not a thing in Fillory, and Tick has managed to terrify the entire kingdom by misinterpreting it as some sort of magical feathery plague.  

Luckily, this _has_ had some unexpected benefits, including sending Margo’s adolescent husband fleeing back to his mountain with his mommy, for fear of catching his new wife’s illness, and also the fairy queen isn’t suspicious that they were gone.  Neither Eliot or Margo seems bothered by the vast dramatics which have gone into selling the illness –– Q’s sure, actually, that both El and Margo would have gone to far greater lengths to lie if left to their own devices –– so he decides not to be bothered about it either.  

Tick then gives them the news about a fair few peasant uprisings, and, slightly more distressingly, that a whole bunch of their new allies, Margo's husband's people, have been  _impaled._

“I told you we shouldn’t have stayed that extra fucking day,” Margo mumbles.  Quentin can’t _exactly_ disagree.  He’s glad Kady’s out of hospital and all, but, wow.  There is a certain amount of disaster around here that you can write off as just Fillory being Fillory, but impalings are definitely outside of that category.

All of that just means it’s time for Eliot and Margo to put their plan into action, though.  While Quentin is technically a king, he’s never felt _less_ involved in the running of Fillory than he does when El and Margo are dealing with this sort of shit –– and, honestly, he doesn’t very much want to get involved.  They seem to be handling things well enough without him, and the last thing Quentin needs right now is _another_ world resting on his shoulders.  He’s having enough trouble saving fucking magic.

So, while Eliot and Margo swiftly summon the fairy queen to make threats and the negotiate-slash-extort the deal which will mean all the Fillorians are able to see her, Quentin, who actually can’t see her either, retires to his rooms to work on the next key quest.

 

* * *

 

The only thing is, back in his own rooms, Quentin just can’t seem to get comfy.

He really doesn’t like his own rooms here, much as it feels like sacrilege to say that about his literal king’s chambers in the fantasy land of his dreams -- he’s definitely ungrateful, but, well.  Everything’s always just a little cold and dusty, given how little time he usually spends here, and it doesn’t have a desk, and the mattress on the objectively nice bed is _way_ harder than Quentin prefers.  Plus, it’s always dark and dingy, because his windows face into the courtyard rather than out at the sun and the window shutters are mostly all stuck shut anyway, something he’s pretty sure is part of an ancient curse against the last person to have this room.  That or he just has shitty luck.

It’s probably bad for his eyes, isn’t it, trying to read when it’s this dim?  He _could_ light some candles, but focusing on the small text of the quest book in the flickering light of a candelabra tends to make his head hurt, anyway.  And the quest book is _important._ He needs the best possible conditions to figure out where the next key is; all of magic is resting on this, after all.  

They are definitely in a castle, with a library and several ornate studies and a sunny courtyard and any number of unused, well-lit rooms with comfortable sofas and warm fires.

Instead of going to any of those, Quentin guiltily sneaks into Eliot’s chambers instead.

He knows Eliot’s room better than anywhere else in the castle, is the only reason.  Definitely the _only_ reason.  He knows he won’t be disturbed in there by anyone other than Eliot when he returns, and Quentin’s used to working around Eliot’s presence after two years of doing it.  And he works well in there, too; he’s done it before. It’s such a nice space, because El’s room is light and filled with pretty things, and his bed is as comfortable as a marshmallow covered in silk sheets.  (Silk sheets Quentin got fucked on this morning, he thinks, and then quickly tells his brain to shut up.) After two years of sleeping on a wooden palette, Quentin thinks his back deserves that sort of treatment, and lays down on Eliot’s expansive bed to read the rest of this book.

He’s made it almost the whole way through the chapter by the time Eliot comes back.  Somehow, El doesn’t look surprised to find Quentin in his bed, even though Q hadn’t asked if he could hang out in here.  Instead, Eliot just pulls off his boots and stiff brocade jacket with a groan, and comes to lay down next to Quentin.

“How’d it go?” Quentin asks, turning his head and staring across the pillows at Eliot.  There’s a few inches of space between them, which feels both cavernous and wholly insufficient at the same time.

“Ugh,” says Eliot dramatically, and Quentin rolls his eyes.  “Okay, I suppose. We’re giving her until tomorrow to consider the deal, not that she’s got any room to say no.  She’s royally pissed at us –– literally royally, get it? –– but if she doesn’t want Margo serving those fairy eggs up poached for hors d'oeuvres at our next royal orgy, she’s going to agree to our terms.”

Quentin wrinkles his nose at the idea of poached fairy eggs –– he saw those eggs, they were creepily transparent and fucking huge –– although Eliot clearly thinks he’s reacting to something else.

“Oh, don’t be a prude,” El says lightly, rolling onto his side to face Quentin and swatting at his shoulder.

“Okay, I feel like we should make some sort of deal that you’re not allowed to call me a prude anymore after I suck your dick a certain amount of times.”

“Mmm, alright.  After one million blowjobs,” Eliot offers.  Quentin laughs, which seems to please El, because he shuffles closer and leans his head down onto Quentin’s shoulder, staring down at the book Quentin’s still propping up on his chest.  “So, you’ve been Sherlock Holmesing the new quest? What’s the low-down?”

“I’ll read you the chapter, if you like,” Quentin offers.  This is another habit from Fillory of the past, another leftover relic of their old life.  Eliot doesn’t really like to read –– something which caused endless teasing and bickering in equal measure between the two of them –– but he doesn’t mind being read _to._ Eliot always preferred when they made up their own stories, but when Quentin started buying little Fillorian adventure novels when he could find them in the local village, El would sometimes lay down in Quentin’s bed at night and let Quentin read him stories until he fell asleep.

Quentin always loved doing it.  Always _has_ loved reading aloud, but especially to Eliot, because it felt a little bit like Quentin finding a way to take care of Eliot for once, instead of the other way around.

Tonight, though, Eliot declines: “Mmm, that does sound nice, but perhaps tomorrow.  I think dealing with the fairy queen sapped me of every last ounce of my ‘able to deal with complex thought problems’ juice, today.”

“Definitely fair enough,” Quentin says, and instead gives Eliot the briefest of recaps of what he’s figured out about the next quest so far, while Eliot’s head stays on Quentin’s shoulder.

As he lays here, though, with Eliot so close, in the bed where they fucked less than a full day ago, Quentin can’t help that his thoughts start drifting.

Mostly, he starts thinking about that morning: how they’d hooked up, like they’ve done a hundred times, but it’s the only time they’ve done it since they came _back,_ and is that weird?  It feels weird, because they haven’t talked about it, haven’t talked about what anything means since they left the _interlude_ that was a full two years of their lives and came back, to all their friends who barely seemed to understand what it meant that they’d actually been gone for years, and who certainly had more important things to focus on, just like Eliot and Quentin do.  So it’s all just confusing, because it’s unknown. Should they talk about? Quentin really doesn’t want to.

He can think of some things he does want, though.

Because, truthfully, Quentin is just –– he’s sort of just horny.  Not _horny_ horny, because Quentin’s always sort of tended to crave sex as an act of closeness and comfort more than solely an urge to get off, but still, like –– a little bit.  And he feels oddly needy, because of how much of their lives is going to hell lately. Because, still, of the depression monster last week, and because of being at the hospital today, bumping into Dr Wexler and being reminded of some of the darkest depths of his own life.  Can he help it, if he’s sort of got a craving for the comfort that sex with Eliot always brings?

Also, he just, frankly, really likes Eliot’s body.  And they’re alone and sprawled out on a comfortable bed and they don’t have any reason to _not._

So Quentin thinks _fuck it,_  and he carefully closes the book and sets it aside once he’s done recapping the chapter to El.  Eliot seems perfectly content to just lay there propped up on Quentin, but Q pushes him off so that he can roll over onto his stomach, their sides pressed together and his head hovering over El’s shoulder.

He looks up, tilting his chin demandingly, and a complicated flurry of emotions pass over Eliot’s face.  This is a position they’ve taken dozens of times before and usually El always interprets it Quentin wanting to be kissed, but right now, he doesn’t move.  Quentin, really hoping he’s not reading things wrong and that Eliot doesn’t want to stop hooking up, decides to take his chances, and leans up to press a kiss into Eliot’s lips.

The second he does it, Eliot surges into the kiss.  It’s often been like this; Quentin making the first move, but Eliot taking every inch he’s given once he knows for sure he’s being given it.  El draws Quentin down closer, pulling their bodies together, manhandling Quentin with one hand around his thigh as he drags that leg over his stomach until Quentin is straddling him, resting his weight heavy in the crook of Eliot’s hips.  They don’t speak, but they kiss and kiss, open mouthed and sloppy and desperate, hitting every little thing they know the other likes, have learned in the past year of doing this. Eliot keeps one hand tight on Quentin’s thigh and the other tangled in his hair, pulling at it delectably as he sucks down Quentin’s throat, and Quentin rocks his weight down onto Eliot’s body and squirms against him and scratches his fingers down Eliot’s chest, pulling open Eliot’s floaty Fillorian shirt, grateful for the easy access.

“You know,” says Quentin, breathless, feeling at least halfway insane, as he runs his thumbs over Eliot’s nipples and listen to Eliot making a delightfully pleased noise underneath him, “This, like, works here, doesn't it?”

“What does?” Eliot asks, his voice all high and strained in Quentin’s _favourite_ way.  “My nipples?  I could have told you that.”

“ _No_ , you asshole,” Quentin laughs, tweaking a nipple just because he can, and then Eliot shoves him onto his back and crawls on top of him, laughing, digging his fingers into Quentin’s ribs, and everything’s a bit dumb and silly for a minute.  “I just _meant,”_ Quentin carries on, when their giggles have settled down and Eliot’s starting trying to kiss his neck again instead of tickle it, “Like, us.  Hooking up, and stuff.  It’s not –– I mean, to _me_ it doesn’t feel all that different, since we got back from the mosaic, is all I, uh, mean.”

He holds his breath for a second.  This was probably not a good time to bring it up, but Quentin’s always a bit braver about talking about things during sex, and he’s not sure when he would have got the nerve up otherwise.  He’s so scared –– fucking terrified, of ruining this thing with Eliot. It feels, dizzyingly, like the best thing that’s ever happened to him, even if it makes both his head and heart want to explode when he remembers how complicated it really is –– how there’s still Alice, who he hasn’t talked to properly since the mosaic, and how everything he feels for Eliot is, really, so intense in ways he knows Eliot doesn’t want.  It just never feels complicated, is the thing, when they’re actually doing it. The moment Eliot kisses him it all just feels like the most simple thing in the world.

“Oh,” says Eliot, and his lips descend onto Quentin’s neck for a moment, sucking hotwetgood against his skin, as one of his hands twines into Quentin’s hair and _pulls_ at the back of his head; a flash of white hot goes through Quentin’s whole body and he yanks Eliot down closer to him, dick twitching in his pants.  While Quentin’s trying to catch his breath, Eliot says, casual as anything against Quentin’s neck, “In that case, I can’t fault your thesis. This definitely _works_ here.”

His other hand slides into Quentin’s pants, but doesn’t quite grab his dick, sort of just pressing past it with the barest hint of friction instead.  Quentin sort of wants to kill Eliot and sort of wants to marry him. It’s a duality he’s very used to feeling.

“Yeah?” he asks anyway, trying to remind himself to keep his train of thought, even as his own hands are working Eliot’s floaty shirt open and off his shoulders, drifting down to touch the soft skin of Eliot’s skinny stomach, tracing down into the V of his hips, stroking his thumbs over the waistline of El’s pants, soft skin, dark hair leading down from his navel…

“Is there a point to this little conversation?” Eliot asks, as he unbuttons his own pants and shoves them down with one hand, rather unceremoniously guiding Quentin’s hand to his dick, which is huge as ever and already hard between his legs.  Fucking hell, Quentin thinks, he needs to get his mouth on it –– better stop talking soon.

“Not, uh, not really, I guess, just thinking we should ––  _fuck.”_ Quentin loses his train of thought for a moment when Eliot tugs at his hair again, and then they’re kissing, wet and open-mouthed and hothothot, so hot Q’s whole body is burning up between Eliot’s hard body on top of him and the maddening softness of the silk sheets below, sensation from every direction, and it’s _so much_ –– “Just thought we should, like, clarify exactly what we’re doing!” he finishes with a squeak when their mouths break apart, before he lets this get off the rails _completely._

“Oh,” says Eliot, equally breathless, which is kind of flattering, and he goes to kiss Quentin's neck again.  “Okay, sure, baby, so long as it’s fucking quick because you look very good on red silk and I have _plans_ for you.”

“Right, okay,” Quentin agrees, mouth going dry.  His head is dizzy. He can’t remember what he wanted to say.  Did he even go into this with any idea of what he was going to say at all?  He’s pretty sure he should have written up talking points beforehand. “Uh, so, are we, like –– fuck, it sounds dumb when I say it –– I guess we’re like, friends with benefits?  Is that what you’d call it?”

A moment of silence.  Quentin suddenly wishes he could see Eliot’s face, but it’s still pressed against his neck.

Then, light as anything, Eliot says, “Yes, that sounds exactly like what we are.  If that’s what you want?”

“I –– yeah.”  Quentin thinks about the alternative –– about things between them _ending,_ about never getting to be with Eliot like this again –– and it’s too horrifying to consider.  So, sure. Friends with benefits. It sounds like something which fits into Eliot’s world, a sort of casual but still intimate encounter which Eliot is no doubt experienced at, and Quentin can’t think of any other way to describe what they’ve been doing all this time without revealing far too much of himself.  “So, like, we’ll keep doing this, then, and nobody –– nobody else has to know, if you don’t want?”

“Sure, sure, we can keep it hushed,” Eliot agrees, rather quickly.  Quentin wouldn’t actually mind people knowing, but he thinks the speed with which Eliot replied means that’s what Eliot must want, so that’s alright.  Probably easier, with Alice and everything. “It’s best news of my sexual prowess doesn’t get around too much, anyway, or I’d never get any sleep between all the hopeful suitors knocking at my door.”

Quentin laughs, and wraps his hand around Eliot’s dick again.  “I actually believe that.”

“Mmmhmm,” Eliot hums, and then in one fast swoop he rolls over to his back, dragging Quentin on top of him.  Quentin lets his legs spread wide over Eliot’s hips, and swallows. His whole body feels bright red and lava-hot.  His brain feels like it’s melted in his skull. How can Eliot still have this effect on him, after more than a year of sex?  “In that case, shall we stop talking, and get on with this spectacular show? I have more than a few things I’ve _always_ wanted to try in this bed.”

Instead of answering, Quentin leans forward and kisses him, hard.  

This is good, he thinks, as they start losing themselves in each other.  This is what he wanted. No more uncertainty –– they’re going to keep hooking up, so he doesn’t have to worry about each time being the last time so much anymore.  And Eliot doesn’t want to tell people, or be more than friends with benefits, but that’s okay, because at least now Quentin _knows._

He knows, and he still gets to suck Eliot’s dick.  Life could be a lot worse than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand that's that! next chapter will be branching off a little further from the show canon, and will be up next sunday at the latest!
> 
> pls leave a comment and let me know if you liked it, i'm literally a gremlin who feeds on comments and validation
> 
> u can reblog the tumb post of this chapter[ here](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com/post/184999964339/dont-ruin-this-on-me-chapter-three) and find my magicians blog [here!](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com) ♥♥


	4. a hundred indecisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i went to rewatch this ep before writing this chapter to see how i could au'ify it, and then realised that by bringing julia to fillory & not losing the depression key to the underworld, i had literally eliminated every single plotline from the whole episode
> 
> so i just put dreams by the cranberries on repeat for literally 5 hours and wrote this instead

_There will be time, there will be time …_  
_Time for you and time for me,_  
And time yet for a hundred indecisions

–– T.S. Eliot

* * *

 

Quentin is still fast asleep, all tangled in Eliot’s expensive sheets and muttering something about dragons into the drool-damp corner of his pillow, when Eliot rises the next day.

It’s nearly criminal, El thinks, that he has to leave something as delicious as a sleep-warm and cuddle-craving Quentin Coldwater, especially since Quentin pretty much always wakes up horny and morning sex is the _best,_ but it can’t be avoided.  He and Margo have to go and meet with the fairy queen, hash out the final terms of this deal, save their whole kingdom –– all that boring shit.  He kisses Quentin’s furrowed brow before he leaves, and Quentin snuffles out, “Get the –– the gold, ‘s cursed, Jane––”, which makes Eliot laugh as he’s leaving the room.  Most of Quentin’s dreams seem to take place in the universe of the fictional Fillory, because, well, that’s just Quentin, and he always talks in his sleep when he’s been particularly well fucked the night before, like it puts him into a particularly deep sleep.  El takes it as a compliment.

All in all, things are going great.  He and Quentin hashed things out last night –– imperfectly, sure, but Eliot’s determined to look on the bright side, because Quentin may not want their friends to know about them but at least he’d been the one to say he wanted to keep fucking, which is really the most Eliot could dream of asking for, and far more than he thought he’d ever get.  So, he’s got a newly defined fuck buddy, a happy hickey on his neck, and a plan to save his kingdom already being put into action.

El’s humming to himself cheerfully as he walks into the throne room and finds Margo reclining on a silk chaise lounge.

“My darling destroyer,” he greets her, leaning down to kiss her quick on the lips and then settling to sit beside her.  “I’m not late, am I? Getting myself into this shirt took longer than I expected. Apparently there are thirty-two different ties at the back, but nobody warned me until I was a dozen in.”

“Worth it, if it looks like that,” she drawls appreciatively, and Eliot blooms under her gaze.  The shirt really is particularly lovely, silken and beaded in elaborate patterns which perfectly replicate the layout of the royal gardens.  He can’t wait until Quentin sees him in it later.  It’s the exact sort of Fillory-nerd catnip that will probably get him a blowjob. “And don’t worry, you’re not late.  Her Royal Bitchness hasn’t turned up yet.”

“Perfect.  So, we’re clear for the plan here, yes?  I mean, she’s _got_ to accept the terms.  We’ve got the fairy eggs, we’ve got all the power.”

“I don’t wanna jinx it, but I’m gonna have to agree,” Margo says, smile stretching wickedly across her lips.  “Take a deep breath, El. These could be our last minutes as that bitch’s bitches.”

So of course, because this is Eliot’s life, that’s exactly when Fen bursts through the door and says, “ _Fray found the eggs!_  Fray found the eggs at the cottage, I’m sorry, I tried to talk her around but then she disappeared and now we can’t find her anywhere!”

Eliot looks from Fen, emotive and panting as she leans against a pillar in her earth clothes and sweat-mussed hair, to Margo, a picture perfect queen on the couch beside him with her frozen in shock.

“Well, _that’s_ bad timing,” Margo says, after a long beat.  Eliot swallows around the bizarre feeling his throat and nods.

“That’s one way of putting it.  Fen ––” he turns back to her, beckons her closer and takes her hand –– “We’re about to have a _very_ delicate negotiation with the fairies, so we’re gonna have to put a pin in this.  I promise, as soon as the meeting’s over, finding Fray will be our top priority.”

Fen’s face contorts with worry, but before she can actually say anything else ––

“That won’t be necessary.”

The Fairy Queen steps through the shadowy doorway of the throne room, Fray just a step behind her, hands clasped and head bowed like a servant.  Fen makes a high sound in her throat and takes a step towards their daughter, but Eliot keeps his hold on her hand, drags her back towards him. The expression on Fray’s face, right now, definitely _doesn’t_ say ‘I want the mother I openly despise to rush at me and hug me.’  It doesn’t actually say much at all.

“We’ve been having _quite_ a talk,” the Fairy Queen continues.  Eliot feels Margo shift on the couch next to him, her unease as palpable as his own.  “Portals and quests and secret trips to earth with bags full of fairy eggs? _So_ much I didn’t know about.  It seems we have a lot to discuss.”

And Bambi, who has always had such an elegant way with words, sums up exactly what Eliot is thinking: “ _Fuck_.”

“How could you tell her all that, Fray?” Fen asks, heartbreak flooding her voice.  “How could you betray your family?”

But Fray is silent.  She just takes a step closer to her Queen, like she’s making it _oh_ so clear who she thinks her family is.  Is it madness, then, that Eliot thinks he sees indecision on her face for just a moment when she looks at Fen?  His heart clutches as he thinks of the daughter he never wanted but has nonetheless ended up with, a part of _him,_ and a part of Fen who he so adores –– and it’s not fair on Fen, mostly, when she’s been trying so fucking hard, not like Eliot who’s a shitty dad.

He goes to say something else, anything else, but Margo’s sharp nails digging into his knee remind him this is not the time for family drama.  He’ll ground Fray later, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with rebellious teenagers (he certainly knows what his parents used to do to _him_ for rebelling isn’t the right way to go about it, but he’s got precious little else to work off).

“I’ve considered your offer, and I’d like to propose a counter,” the Fairy Queen continues, idling closer to them, her long white gown dragging across the floor in silence, uneasily quiet just like everything else about her.  She beckons Fray to follow her, and then, when she so eagerly does, wraps one bony hand around Fray’s wrist. “Don’t hurt _my_ children, and I won’t hurt _yours.”_

Which, just.  _Shit_.

“Don’t you touch her!” Fen bursts out, all in a flurry, red cheeks and damp eyes and all the rage of a knifemakers daughter.

“Let’s just –– let’s just calm down, and talk about this,” Eliot quickly cuts in.  He wants to diffuse the situation, but it’s hard to know where to even begin diffusing, as he keeps tight hold of Fen to keep her rushing towards them, but focuses his gaze on Fray’s face, her confused eyes, the gape of her mouth.

“But –– but, my queen, I helped you!”

“Mmm,” the Fairy Queen agrees, looking down at Eliot’s daughter like she’s observing a slug she’s about to smush with her shoe.  “And help you did, by selling out your own parents.  Typical of a duplicitous little human.  I have no use for creatures I can’t trust.”

Her hand tightens on Fray’s wrist, and Eliot can see her pointed fingers leaving marks on the skin.  Fray’s face opens wide up, for the first time that Eliot has ever seen: all her snark and disdain drop away, and she just looks _scared,_ and so young.

Eliot thinks back to earlier.  Talking to Quentin, Quentin saying –– _you’re a really good dad, in your own way._ Saying, _when you get a chance to do it properly, you’ll be amazing._ He wants so badly for that to be true.  He wants so badly not to be his own father.

So in that moment, all he can do is turn to Margo, heart in his throat, and say, “We've gotta give her the eggs.”

Margo looks at him, and it's maybe the closest to _pleading_ he could ever describe her.  “There's gotta be some other way.  That's our only leverage, Eliot. We have a whole freaking country to think about.”

“I know.”  And he does, he _really_ does, and he cares about Fillory and their kingdom and _Margo,_ who he knows cares even more than him, so goddamn much, but.  “But she's my daughter. I can’t turn my back on her.”

There’s an aching pause in the room, as he stares into Bambi’s eye and she stares back at him, and Fen is clutching El’s hand hard enough to hurt.  And then:

“I'm not your daughter!”  Fray bursts out with it all at once.  “I'm just a human who -”

The fairy queen has her mouth covered in a second, but it’s too late.  The words are out there. They’re spoken, and they hang in the air like a physical object, seen by everyone in the room, unable to be unseen.

“What're you saying?” Eliot asks quickly, his voice throaty and confused.  “Explain.”

“ _Now_ , or it's poached fucking eggs tonight,” Margo adds.

The Fairy Queen sighs, looking put-upon, but it’s not really like she has a choice now, is it?  And so, as they all just keep staring at her, she finally loosens her grip and admits, “Fray isn't yours.  Your real daughter died during childbirth.”

And.  Eliot’s heart just sort of.

Goes still.

Fen, who had been standing all this time, collapses onto the chaise beside him.  El wraps an arm around her shoulder like a reflex, pulling her back into his chest, holding her up.  He can almost feel the hollow space which just appeared inside her.  He remembers the Fen he first got back from the fairies –– the Fen who tried to breastfeed a log, who tucked a bunny into a royal crib, who was driven nearly the whole way to madness by her grief.  He remembers not having a clue what to do.  Not being able to help. He remembers feeling fucking awful, but distracted; now, it’s just awful and more awful and more awful still.

“She died?” Fen chokes out, and Eliot soothes at her hair, but there’s nothing else he can do.  Like always, like fucking always, he can’t do a thing to help. “Oh, gods, I, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh _no.”_

And Margo, because she’s Margo, smiles her most savage close-lipped smile, but it’s all rage behind it.

“You hear that?” she asks the Fairy Queen, innocent as anything, as Fen shakes in Eliot’s arms.  “ _That_ is the sound of your leverage disappearing.  You'd better seal this deal while you still can.”

 

 

* * *

 

  
While Eliot and Margo are talking to the fairy queen, Quentin goes to find Julia.

He hasn’t spoken to her much since coming back from the mosaic quest, if he’s honest –– not as much as he would have _liked_ to, at least.  She knows that he was gone for two years, and she’d seemed interested in hearing about his time at the mosaic (the parts Quentin was willing to share, at least), but she hasn’t shared much about what’s going on with _her._

He’s glad he took her back to Fillory when he bumped into her, that first day that he and Eliot returned.  He doesn’t know what it is exactly, but Jules just sort of seems –– a bit lost _,_ right now.  He’s trying not to push, but he wants to know that she’s okay, and he wants to be there for her, in whatever way he can.  And she seems to be enjoying being here, in Fillory, at least as some sort of distraction. Part of the reason he hasn’t seen much of her has been that she’s been throwing herself into tasks around the kingdom with more fervour than even Quentin can summon for Fillory these days.  She seems to have impressed Tick, because he keeps asking for her help with the running of the castle, and in dealing with problems in the local towns.

“Hey, Jules,” Quentin greets, rapping at the doorframe of the little room he’s found her in.  She jolts a little as she looks up, but settles when she realises it’s him, smiling across from the plush chair she’s sat in.  There’s a book in her lap, so as he curves into the room and hops onto on the edge of the desk beside her, he asks, “What’ya reading?”

Julia raises the book and he peeks at the title.  It’s some leather-bound tome from the castle library.   _The Magic Of Gods: Praise Be To Ember And Umber._ Fillorians really do seem to love praising those two.

“You know they’re, uh, both kind of dead, right?” Q checks.  He knows Julia, like him, is the sort to read anything she can get her hands on when it comes to Fillory, and even _more_ than him is the sort to chase out theory just to learn how it all works.  But in case she’s getting her hopes up about something in that book, he figures he should check.

“I do,” she confirms, and slides the book closed with a sigh.  Her legs are pulled up in the chair, and she plucks at the knee of her leggings, not quite meeting his eyes.  “It’s pointless to read it, anyway; I know there’s nothing helpful in there. I’ve just been, uh, looking into God magic, a bit, and this is the only relevant thing in the library I hadn’t read yet.”

“Okay?”  Quentin looks at Jules, peering out of the curtain of his hair and really, properly inspecting her face.  She looks tired. She looks like _Julia,_ not shadeless Julia or the Julia who’d been so hurt she’d saved the Beast from Fillory, so it’s not like he’s _too_ worried, but.  Still. His best friend is hurting, somewhere, and Quentin can tell.  “Any particular reason, or…”

Jules sighs.

“So, I didn’t actually tell you this yet, but I found out _why_ .  Why I’m the only one in the world who can seem to do magic right now?”  Just her sparks, still, he’s seen her practicing and not getting further than that, and yet it’s still _so_ much more than should be possible that it makes his brain churn.  “It turns out, it’s because it’s not human magic. Our Lady Underground, she planted something in me.  It’s –– it’s _his_ magic, Q.  She gave me Reynard’s God magic.”

_Oh._

That makes so much sense, Q thinks, but it also hurts his heart.  Julia’s assault is –– it’s one of the worst things that’s happened to any of them, even after all this hell.  It’s something he, personally, feels immensely guilty for in ways he can’t explain, because he knows it wasn’t directly his _fault_ but he also knows he cast her away that year when she didn’t deserve it, he pushed her towards those dangerous paths with his own harsh words and selfish hoarding of the magical world.  He swallows hard and reaches out to her, and Julia lets him take her hand. That feels like a small victory, at least; some way he can offer her comfort in his own hopeless way.

“That’s –– that’s a lot,” Quentin observes, and Julia snorts.  He knows it was an understatement. “How do you feel?”

“Honestly?  Like absolute shit, Q.  I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of this, but people just don’t seem to know anything about God magic, and there’s no regular magic around to help right now.  But I don’t want _his_ magic.  I don’t want any part of him in me.”

“Of course you don’t, Jules.”  Q keeps his voice gentle; he tries to imagine how one of his therapists would have spoken in a moment like this, though he’s sure he’s wholly inadequate at it.  “I understand that. But hey, listen. If that magic’s in you, it’s _not_ Reynard’s magic anymore, is it?  I mean, it’s yours. You can’t use someone else’s magic –– that’s why magic transplants are almost always rejected, we learned about them at, uh, back at Brakebills.  So if you’re using that magic? That means it _is_ yours.”

Julia finally meets his gaze, her eyes wide and ocean-deep with pain.

“I’ve been thinking about doing a transfer,” she admits, quietly.  “I mean, I wouldn’t have thought of it on my own, but. When I said I didn’t want my power, Alice asked if she could have it.  She _really_ wants to.”

Shit.  Quentin thought Alice was starting to heal from the whole niffin thing, at least a little, but her craving to have any sort of larger magic back is clearly still clawing her up, clouding her from seeing any sort of reason –– despite how she said she didn’t want to help on the key quest, despite how _then_ she said she thought the world was better off if they never got back.  So now the world’s better off without it, but Alice wants it back for herself?

For someone who always claims to be so logical, Alice is so terminally run by her emotions.  Quentin feels a surge of anger towards her for asking Jules to do something so dumb, but he squashes it down the next second, because it’s all his fault for bringing her back from being a niffin anyway, so he once again knows where the blame should fall.

“That’s really dangerous, Jules.  You know that, right? You could get both of you killed.”

“That’s what Fogg said,” Julia admits.  Quentin stands up from the desk he’d been perched on and squashes himself into the large chair beside Julia instead.  It’s cramped and he ends up half sitting on her, their joined hands tangled uncomfortably between them, but when you’ve known someone since you were a kid, things like that never seem to matter much.

“It may have been his energy, or power, or whatever, to start with,” he begins, choosing his words carefully and slowly and looking down at her hand where it’s wrapped up in his, terrified of messing this up.  “But it was given to you by, by Persephone, right? It was a gift from _her._ A real life fucking Goddess, Jules, trusted that _you_ are the person who deserved this.  I know I can’t get how you must feel towards _him,_ but I do know you.  I know you’re the smartest, kindest, most, like, _worthy_ person I have ever met.  If there’s gonna be only one person in the world with magic?  Then Persephone knew her shit, because I think you’re a really, really good choice.”

Julia laughs, and it sounds a little soggy.  She twists in the chair so her knees can tuck across his thighs, and turns into Quentin’s chest, her damp nose pressing into his t-shirt.

“I’m not.  I’ve done so much shit, Quentin.  The last time I had power, I burned down a whole fucking forest, right here in Fillory.  And now I’ve got power again, and it’s from someone _evil.”_

“Jules, I know you did some bad things when you didn’t have your shade, but you were still always _trying_ to help.  You just, like, didn’t know how to go about it, but that’s not your fault.  And now you have your shade _and_ magic.  It’s not his anymore, Jules.  It’s yours, and you can choose what you do with it.  Isn’t that kind of amazing?” Quentin reaches down, and pets a hand through Julia’s hair, the same way she’s done to him a hundred times in hospital beds or on bathroom floors; so often, she’s the one taking care of him, but for once he’s glad it can be the other way around.  “You can take a power which might have once been used for horrible things, and you could use it to be good. To be great, even _._ To make it the exact opposite of everything he would have done.  Isn’t that the biggest ‘fuck you’ to that bastard you could possibly imagine?”

“I guess you have a point there,” Julia says, weakly, into Quentin’s chest.  He can feel when the muscles of her cheek twitch like she’s beginning to smile, and Quentin smiles, too.  “I do _really_ like the idea of telling him ‘fuck you’.”

 

* * *

 

  
Q stays with Julia a while longer, chatting about Fillory, but lets her go when Tick appears in the doorway and asks for her help with some sort of fountain issue going on in the courtyard.  Apparently, even though she can only make sparks, Julia’s magic makes her supremely qualified to deal with this issue. She looks keen to help, so Quentin lets her go with just one quick hug, and tries not to feel too worried.

He goes to grab lunch in the kitchens, but there seem to be less staff around than usual, and Quentin doesn’t want to bother the couple of harried-looking servants in there, so in the end he just escapes with a hunk of bread and a large Fillorian peach from a bowl on the table.  He tries not to think of how that reminds him of the mosaic, the girl they’d made friends with from a nearby farm, Arielle, and her sort-of-boyfriend Lunk, who’d always come to give them free peaches when it was hot.

Still, maybe it does have some effect on him, because Q finds himself winding back to Eliot’s room instead of heading anywhere else in the castle after that.  He’d like to blame that on the nostalgia of the peach, at least, rather than just the fact he’s embarrassingly obsessed with Eliot.

He settles back onto El’s bed, because there’s no desk in this room –– and, okay, just a little because Quentin really likes this bed –– with the quest book and a few loose sheets of paper, and starts taking notes.  The next section of the book seems to be in code, and Quentin’s trying to decipher it, but is admittedly a complete novice at such things and is having _no_ luck.

He struggles through it for at least a little while before hearing the door creak.  It’s only once it does that Quentin suddenly thinks: Eliot’s been gone for quite a long time, hasn’t he?  He was gone before Quentin even woke up, and then Q had been with Jules for at least a couple hours too. That either means things have gone very right or very _wrong,_ and he’s suddenly, troublingly inclined to think the latter when Eliot appears in the doorway.

“Hey?” Quentin says, caught off guard by the way Eliot strides into the room without meeting his eyes.  “El? How did it go?”

“Uh, do you want the good news or the plot twist?” Eliot asks, sounding the tiniest bit hysterical.  He’s pacing around the room, catching the floor in strides so long that it only takes him a few steps before he has to turn around again, and one hand is raised to his face, thumb pressing at his lower lip and worrying it between his teeth.  Quentin’s heart spikes with concern, and he reaches out until he can catch a hold of El, dragging him to sit down on the bed.

“Hey,” says Quentin, taking Eliot’s worried hand between both of his own and looking right into his eyes, up close.  “How about both?”

“Well, good news, the fairy queen accepted our not-so-negotiable deal.  She’ll be travelling to install her royal bath in the centre of Fillory tomorrow, and then everyone will be able to see her.  Plot twist? Fray isn’t my daughter.” Quentin can’t help but notice the way Eliot’s troubled eyes fog over when he says that.  “Fen’s baby –– _my_ real baby died in childbirth.”

And.  That’s just.  “Oh,” says Quentin, with no idea what else to say, feeling hopelessly inadequate in every way as the news sinks in.  It’s not that he didn’t always think the Fray thing was weird –– _everyone_ did, and nobody believed it at first –– but just, after a while of seeing them together, she’d seemed to have so much of Eliot in her.  And anyway, there’s a big difference between not knowing where your baby may be and _knowing_ that they’re dead.  “Oh, _Eliot_.”

Quentin wraps his arms around Eliot’s shoulders and pulls him into a hug, because there’s nothing much else to do, and because Eliot is a physical creature: touch means more to him than words, anyway.  Eliot turns into the embrace, his arms looping around Quentin’s waist and his chin setting into the crook of Quentin’s next, and Q rocks back and forth just the littlest bit, holding on tight, tight, tight.

“I stayed with Fen for a while,” Eliot says, quietly.  “Just held her. There wasn’t much I could say to help.  I felt –– I felt like I needed to be there for her, because it was _our_ baby, but the truth is, I never wanted it like she did.  I can’t understand how this feels for her.”

Quentin asks, “How does it feel for _you?”_

There is another pause, and most of him is expecting Eliot to brush off the question, or just straight up not respond maybe, because that’s what Eliot does when faced with talking about his own real emotions.  But to Quentin’s surprise, El doesn’t push him away and go to grab the nearest alcoholic drink like a particularly fast-moving shark with substance abuse problems. For tonight, at least, he doesn’t run. He just lets himself stay in Quentin’s arms.

“Equal measures shitty and unreal,” Eliot admits, after a while of silence.  “With a healthy mixture of _relief,_ which makes the shittiness a thousand times more potent.  What kind of terrible person am I to be _relieved_ that my daughter ––”  He breaks off, clearly not able to say _died_ at the end of that, although they both hear it anyway.  “Well, no, I’m not relieved about _that,_ but an awful, awful part of me is definitely relieved that I’m not going to have to be a father.”

The vulnerability Eliot’s showing by actually telling Quentin any of that –– by actually leaning on another person just a little, sharing his emotions in a time of sadness in a way he never used to even do with Margo –– is breathtakingly brave, to Quentin.

His chest aches, and he wraps his arms a little tighter around El, fingertips stroking at soft skin.  Every inch of him is just glad, right now, that he can be the one who’s here for Eliot.

“El, you’re not terrible.  You were forced into marrying Fen, _practically_ forced into sleeping with her, and you never wanted a kid.  It’s okay that you didn’t want any of this, okay?  And it’s okay that you’re sad too.  There’s no, like, correct way to deal with anything this shitty –– nobody’s expecting it to be clear cut.”

“It never even felt real to me,” Eliot admits.  “I never touched Fen’s stomach when she was pregnant, I never felt the baby kick or any of those cliche things parents always talk about connecting through.  She never really talked to me about the pregnancy. The fairies took her away before her bump even got huge. So it was like she left without a baby and came back without a baby and then Fen was sad and I was worried about her but it was never real to _me._  It didn’t feel real until I got to know Fray, really, and thought she was mine.”

“You were good with her, when you did thinks she was yours,” Quentin says, because he does believe that’s true, even if it was good in an Eliot sort of way.  Then, because he has no brain-to-mouth filter and he’s always sort of been curious, he asks, “Did you ever want to have kids?”

Eliot hums.  “I suppose. I kind of always thought –– someday.  I know that’s probably surprising, considering everything about me.”

Quentin doesn’t think it’s surprising, not really, not at all.  For all his running and emotional repression and unhealthy coping mechanisms, when you get right to the core of Eliot, he’s just a kid who never had a stable home, and has never stopped wanting one.

The second you strip away his outside influences, all of Eliot’s most domestic traits come pouring out like they’re just _desperate_ to.  Quentin saw it most in the way Eliot so easily made a home for the both of them at the mosaic; the way he transformed their little hut to something warm and personalised, the way he cultivated mealtimes and traditions, the way he took care of Quentin so naturally that Q felt almost precious.

It would be surprising to think of the Eliot that Quentin once found using telekinesis to snort lines of cocaine off the dicks of two separate naked men in the Physical Kids kitchen, at, like, 1pm on a Wednesday, as a good father.  But it isn’t surprising at all to think of it from the El who held back Quentin’s sweaty hair for three hours when he caught an odd Fillorian stomach flu, and got his hands dirty growing vegetables in the little beds around the mosaic just so he could recreate Quentin’s favourite carrot soup without Quentin asking, and lay in bed with him for hours singing lullabies against Quentin’s forehead so many times when Quentin had bad days, and forced Quentin to not give up over and over and over again.

No, Quentin thinks: _loving_ and _caring_ and _family_ pour off Eliot in waves, if he’d only let himself see it.

El continues, sounding like it’s more to himself than to Quentin, “But it was so abstract.  Like, I figured when I was in my forties, and I’d moved from raves and orgies to classy wine-and-cheese gatherings.  Then I’d be ready. And I’d be, like, a total silver fox with an uptown apartment full of expensive art, and a live-in boyfriend a decade younger than me, and I’d have way more of my shit together, and then _maybe_ I’d adopt an orphan with an interesting backstory.  I never planned on being twenty four and a grad school bail-out in an arranged marriage to a _woman._  I certainly never planned on doing it before I’d managed to repress every second of my own childhood and spent at least a decade observing all my friends become parents first so I had a clue how to be a father.”

It’s nearly a physical pain that hits Quentin as he listens to that.  He knows all of their lives have gone off the rails in the last couple of years –– Alice died and came back all wrong, Penny died for _good,_ Margo lost an eye, Julia went though the most traumatic event of her life and is now apparently having to live the magic of the man who did it to her.  But he can’t deny how overinvested he is in Eliot, and Eliot’s life has diverged so wholly and awfully from anything he ever expected for himself, clearly, and it makes Quentin _hurt_.  Eliot never wanted Fillory, never wanted to be King even, never wanted any of this.  He’s stepped up to the plate so fucking well, sacrificed for all of them, but it’s not fair that he had to.

“I know everything seems fucked now, El, but you might still get to have those things,” Quentin eventually says: he doesn’t really know how else to comfort Eliot, or whether El even wants comforting.  “We’re gonna get through all of this, and get our lives back, and –– that can be whatever you want it to mean, okay? So you’ll have your chance to be a father the way _you_ want to.”

Even if it makes Quentin sort of want to leap off a cliff when he thinks of Eliot having children with someone else, he really does just want Eliot to be happy.  And he can totally picture the guy Eliot would end up with in that scenario –– probably, like, an artist, renowned in the New York gallery scene but with too much integrity to _sell out_ and go mainstream.  Tall like Eliot, definitely amazing in bed and confident enough to top more than once in a while, always wearing those round frameless glasses which scream _I went to art school_ and cooking exotic vegan food and taking Eliot to interesting parties hosted by his interesting friends who are all queer professors or performers or investigative journalists who’ve won a Pulitzer, and ––

All of a sudden, Eliot laughs, and the sound drags Quentin back into reality, though it sounds a touch forced.  “Sorry I’m being so maudlin! I don’t mean to bring the mood down, Q. This isn’t your problem, anyway.”

“Your problems are my problems,” Quentin says, before he can think about it.  He instantly regrets being so candid and flushes, but it’s maybe worth the embarrassment to see the look on Eliot’s face, caught off guard for once.  “I just mean, I, uh –– I don’t mind listening to you, when you need to talk. And it’s good for you to not bottle this stuff up. So you can talk more, if you want, I don’t mind.  Or, if you want, I could –– distract you?”

Q doesn’t even mean anything by it, _honestly,_ when he says that.  He mostly means he could talk about the quest for a while, or drag Eliot on a walk around the castle gardens, or take him to find Margo and a bottle of tequila, whatever.  But all of a sudden, a truly lecherous grin is washing over Eliot’s face, and Quentin realises what that must sound like he’s offering.

“Uh!  I mean––” he says, but Eliot cuts him off.

“I _definitely_ choose that option.  Distract me, Quentin!  Have your wicked way with me to cheer me up!”  He flops back onto the mattress, arms spreading out wide against the silk sheets, and beckons Quentin closer with one wicked crooked finger.

Well.  Who is Quentin to deny the High King a request like that?

He crawls into Eliot’s lap, sitting hard in the cradle of El’s hips because he knows how Eliot likes feeling his weight that way, and leans down to catch Eliot’s face between his hands.  Quentin holds out on kissing him for a moment, just enjoying how it feels to press against him like that, his knees bent either side of Eliot’s waist and their chests pressed completely together, the warmth of their bodies spreading, everything so _close close close_ that it feels like the size of the whole world has condensed down to just the space between them, that the room is only as big as their two bodies.

 _Nothing outside of this matters, not a single thing,_ thinks Quentin, and finally kisses him.

Like most of their kisses, it starts sweet and gets messy.  He’s nipping at Eliot’s lips before he knows it, getting rough in the way Eliot likes, sliding up his hands to tangle and tug at Eliot’s hair.  Q’s the one with the hair pulling thing, really, but Eliot certainly never objects to it, and he’s not now –– he’s making delicious pleased noises into Quentin’s open mouth, and his hands are mapping a path against Q’s body, roaming slowly and delectably like he has all the time in the world and wants to spend it on nothing more than this, nothing other than petting Quentin’s stomach under his shirt and scratching over his nipples and dipping down to cup his dick through his jeans for just one teasing moment before sliding back around to his waist.

Then Eliot pulls Quentin’s shirt up and over his head in one quick move, decidedly more graceful than Quentin’s ever managed to take off his _own_ shirt, even if it does leave his hair ruffled, and drags Q back down into another kiss.  Quentin pushes his tongue against Eliot’s and licks at the roof of his mouth, the kiss getting both sloppier and more thrilling by the second, each hard press of their wet mouths sending ripples of pleasure down to Quentin’s dick.  Eliot’s hand on his bare waist draws him closer, Q’s skin on fire at the point of contact.

Quentin feels a little dizzy.  Hot all over his body. His lower half is heavy, like it just wants to press against Eliot and never move again.

“So if I suck your dick, that will definitely distract you, right?” Quentin checks, pulling back from their kiss all of a sudden and sitting up, his hands bracing on Eliot’s chest.  Eliot groans.

“You, Quentin Coldwater, are a tease––”

“It would only be teasing if I wasn’t gonna _do_ it––”

“––and I know I’m the one who nurtured your worst impulses so I can’t complain, but at this point, I really think you need to take responsibility for what you do to me.”

“Oh, yeah?  And what is it I do to you?”

Admittedly, there, Quentin is _definitely_ teasing.  He shifts in Eliot’s lap just to feel El hard underneath him, and Eliot mock-glares at him, though underneath the expression is just pure heat.  

“Now’s your chance to prove you’re not a tease, Coldwater.  Daylight’s wasting.”

“It’s like, two PM.  Daylight’s fine.” Quentin rolls his eyes, but he leans down and kisses El again anyway, because it’s Eliot: how can he not?  No matter how much Eliot snarks at him, he’ll still be lying there looking like pure sin with his dark curls on the pillows and his eyes lidded and his lips red and wet from kissing, mouth open the tiniest bit as he breathes hard, and it drives Quentin _crazy._

“So, to be clear, I _am_ getting a blowjob out of this,” Eliot checks, the next time they break apart to catch their breath.  Quentin stares at him for one long second, and then just –– he can’t help it, he just _bursts_ out laughing.  “Laugh all you want, but you seemed awfully –– that tickles! –– awfully concerned with knowing exactly what you were going to be doing to me, and I’d hate –– _mmm_ –– for you to feel undirected in the moment.”

One of Quentin’s favourite things is just quite how much he and Eliot _talk_ during sex.  Quentin’s talkative no matter who he’s with, and he knows it’s annoyed some of his past partners –– he still, actually, distinctly remembers his first girlfriend muttering in a moment of passion that if he would just _shut up, she might get there._ It’s not like that with Eliot though.  Eliot seems to like the talking. Sometimes it’s sexy talk, which Eliot always delights in and has also delighted in slowly teaching Q to do, but also sometimes just mundane talk, logistical talk, totally unrelated talk –– everything.  By the end they’re usually both pretty driven into non-verbalness, but their sex always begins like everything else between them. A conversation.

“I definitely feel directed,” Quentin assures him wryly, sucking a series of short wet kisses against Eliot’s open mouth.  “The direction is _down._ ”

With that settled, he starts undoing the series of fiddly little knots down the side of Eliot’s shirt, but Eliot mutters, “Takes too fucking long, start with the pants,” and Quentin only laughs a little bit more before obeying.  He kisses and nips at every bare bit of skin he can find without having to work Eliot out of his complicated Fillorian finery –– it’s sort of hot hooking up with Eliot when he’s fully dressed, given how _good_ Eliot always looks in all his clothes –– and then further down, pushing the stiff shirt up as much as he can to kiss at Eliot’s stomach, digs his teeth lightly into the skin just above Eliot’s waistband.  Eliot sucks in a complicated breath of air above him, knees bending up on the mattress and bracketing Quentin’s head.

“I’m going to suck your dick now,” Quentin informs him once more, just to be a little shit, and then ducks out the way of Eliot’s playfully admonishing hands with a laugh before finally opening his pants.

The first time he did this, Quentin was, like, _wildly_ intimidated by El’s dick.  It was his first time with another guy and Quentin had never really thought about the whole _comparison_ aspect of sleeping with someone with the same sort of body as you, but Eliot is definitely bigger than Quentin’s entirely average dick size.  And when someone’s massive fucking erection is waving in your face for the first time it’s natural to be a bit freaked out.  At least, that’s what Quentin tells himself to keep from feeling too embarrassed.

By now, though, he’s had plenty of fucking practice.  He doesn’t fool himself into thinking he’s probably the best Eliot’s ever had, but he at least hopes he makes up for it with enthusiasm.  Because that’s the thing: Quentin is really, _really_ enthusiastic about sucking dick.  This isn’t something he knew about himself until a year ago.  It is something he couldn’t possibly un-know now.

It makes him feel hot all over just looking at it, one hand wrapped loose around the base while El squirms above him, and for all their talk about teasing, Quentin doesn’t waste another moment before slipping his lips over the head.  The reaction it gets from Eliot is immediate, and Quentin sets all his efforts on drawing out more of those reactions: he starts slow but quickly works up speed, working his mouth and his hand together until Eliot is pulling at his hair and sighing, and then faster still, his tongue darting out occasionally to press against Eliot’s slit until Eliot’s knees hitch higher like he can’t help but move.  Q gets sloppier as he goes faster, but Eliot certainly doesn’t seem to care that spit is getting everywhere, not when he’s pushing himself into Q’s mouth in tiny little motions and fisting his hands Quentin’s hair, tugging him down further.

The only thing that Quentin doesn’t like about blowjobs is that he can’t talk while he’s giving them, because if he could talk right now, he’d say: _fuck, El, I love this, fuck, Eliot, Eliot, this feels so good, you look so fucking hot, Eliot_ .  His own dick is hard, trapped too tight in his jeans to really do anything with, but he squirms down against the sheets just to get _some_ relief, hips twitching just this side of frantic.  He’s still using one hand to jerk off the half of Eliot’s dick he can’t reach with his mouth, but he slips the others into El’s pants and presses a thumb into the spot behind his balls which always makes Eliot go weak.

“Quentin,” Eliot gasps above him, in an intimately familiar way.  “ _Mm,_ if you –– don’t want –– ah, I’m gonna come now, I’m gonna come, baby.”

Which is, like, the hottest thing Quentin could possibly hear.  Feeling like he could maybe come in his jeans right now too, he pulls back until just the head of Eliot’s dick is pressing against his tongue, jerking him off frantically until Eliot lets out one last moan and spurts into Quentin’s mouth.

It’s not their neatest ever endeavour; El’s dick twitches as he comes and half of it gets on Quentin’s lips instead of inside them, but when Quentin looks up the bed he sees Eliot blissed-out and smiling in that close-eyed way he always does after sex, like he can’t believe he just felt that good, so it’s well worth it.  Quentin looks around for something to spit into, but there’s nothing in reach and he definitely doesn’t feel like moving, so he swallows instead. It’s not like come ever tastes _good,_ exactly, but it’s Eliot’s.  He doesn’t mind.

“You are officially a very good distraction,” Eliot says breathlessly, dragging Quentin back up the bed to kiss him.  Quentin, who is still desperately turned on, folds himself into Eliot’s side immediately, hooking one leg over him and wondering if El might want to ––

And then, all of a sudden, there’s a crashing sound outside, and an explosion of frantic knocks against the thick wood of Eliot’s bedroom door.  Startled, Quentin nearly falls off the bed, his erection immediately flagging as his brain begins to run through disaster scenarios for any anyone could be knocking so urgently, and quickly roots around for his shirt, snagging it out of the tangled nest of sheets it got chucked into and tugging it back-to-front over his head.  Eliot doesn’t make any attempt to get off the bed, but, well, he’s Eliot. The second Q’s refastened his pants, he goes to answer the door, and has barely turned the handle before it’s being swung open towards him.

“SIRES!” Tick Pickwick shrieks, suddenly an inch away from Quentin’s face and incredibly unbothered by the state of undress he’s found them in, “I DO NOT MEAN TO ALARM YOU, BUT IT APPEARS I HAVE NO CHOICE, AS THE CASTLE IS UNDER SIEGE!  YOUR PRESENCE IN THE THRONE ROOM IS STRONGLY REQU–– oh, you’re moving already, okay.”

 

* * *

 

“A _peasant uprising?”_ Eliot repeats, incredulous, like he’s checking he didn’t mishear for a _third_ time as he massages his temples with his fingers.  If he were to glance to his left, he’d see Margo with her lips pressed tight and her fingers digging into the arm of her throne like she’s ready to leap out of it and tear someone to shreds with rage any second.  If he were to glance to his right, he’d see Q, several shades paler than normal and shocked into stillness. Instead of either of those, Eliot keeps staring straight ahead at his categorically terrible team of royal advisors, and wonders how the _fuck_ this is his _life._ “But we _just_ made that deal with the Fairy Queen.  She was supposed to have installed her bathtub in the town square this morning, so everyone could see her; didn’t that _happen?"_

“Oh, it did indeed transpire, your Highness,” Tick assures him, hands pressed together and his manner altogether more pleasant than it had been when he’d burst into Eliot’s bedroom in screams a half hour ago.  “It seems, however, that it may have been, um, to put it delicately, a touch too _late._ The general feeling of unhappiness with the current ruling situation had already spread to even the outermost reaches of Fillory, and the reveal of a Fairy deal seemed to rather bolster that Fillory may perhaps be better with a _Fillorian_ in charge.”

Eliot’s, like, definitely had that thought before himself, if he’s honest.  But that doesn’t change the fact that this _is_ his kingdom –– his and Bambi’s and somewhat Quentin’s too –– and he’s been trying his fucking best.  He’d like to see how anyone from Fillory would have handled any of this bullshit any better than he and Margo did.  He, personally, thinks they deserve some fucking _credit._

He is also very, very sleepy.  He didn’t even get to enjoy his post-orgasm cuddles with Q.  Why does the world keep ripping away his favourite things?

There doesn’t seem to be much else to do but let out a mighty, exhausted groan, and slump back in his throne, eyes falling shut.  “Okay,” Eliot says weakly, his voice coming out high with hopelessness. “Okay, Tick, Rafe, Abigail… what is the official recommendation here?  How does one even stop a _peasant uprising?"_

“My king, I feel our best plan of action is to put the castle on total lockdown at this time,” Tick immediately jumps in.  “The citizens have limited resources, and can’t possibly outlast us in a siege. So long as you remain in the castle, your Highnesses’ safety should be assured.  We can work on the, ah, more _delicate_ political side of things as we wait them out.”

“Okay,” says Eliot, without opening his eyes.  He waves a hand in the general direction he thinks is Tick.   _Seriously,_ he’s so tired.  “Okay, lockdown sounds good.  You guys go do that. Let me know when nobody’s trying to kill me, anymore.”

He hears the council retreating from the room, and then there’s just a long, long stretch of silence.  Eliot distantly remembers Encanto Occulto, in his first year at Brakebills.  He and Margo drank and partied and fucked in a haze of sex magic and class A drugs for an entire week on the gorgeous beaches of Ibiza.  One morning always stands out in his mind, when he had his feet in the warm water of the ocean shallows and his back on the sand, and was getting his dick expertly sucked just as he watched the sunrise crest over the horizon, and every inch of his body was both tingling with pleasure and deeply, achingly relaxed at the same time; he remembers thinking, afterwards, the _only_ ugly thing about that moment was the used condom laying half buried in sand a few feet away.  

Right now, Eliot would not only rather be back on that beach, he’d even rather be that used condom.  Just be a bit of garbage on a shoreline, covered in stranger spunk, for someone with a DUI to pick up with tongs during their community service later and throw in a trash bag.  At least it would be _simpler._

* * *

 

 

As it turns out, there is an upside to the castle being on lockdown.

The upside is this: with nothing they can reasonably be doing and nowhere else they can reasonably go, Eliot and Quentin take the chance to hook up all over the castle.

It’s like the floodgates have been opened, since they had that talk about sort-of-defining what they are, and now it feels like they can’t _stop._ If their relationship is destined to just be a bit of casual fun, then Quentin is determined to make it the most _fun_ it can possibly be.  So he drags Eliot into every abandoned room they can possibly find at Whitespire, and gets to it –– blows him in alcoves where anyone could walk past, tugs him behind dusty old tapestries just for a few hot kisses, finally gives in to at least three of Eliot’s dirty fantasies that Q had been resolutely holding out on until now.  While the few servants left in the castle flap about trying to keep things organised, Quentin and Eliot make out in the castle baths, soapy and wet and pressed together until Q gets faint from the steam. While the castle doors are attacked by an angry mob so loud that even sleeping becomes impossible, Q decides that if they’re gonna be up all night _anyway_ they might as well, and lets Eliot fuck him for five hours straight (with a few snack breaks) and not let him come until he’s out of his mind and begging for it.  While the royal council hold harried meetings long into the night about strategy and demands, Quentin sneakily barricades the throne room door and rides Eliot on his High King’s throne, which is possibly, like, the biggest Fillory-nerd-wet-dream thing he could _ever_ do, but he’s leaning into that, because it’s fucking great.

If this is what peasant uprisings are like, Quentin thinks he wouldn’t mind having them more often.

If Margo or Julia have noticed the two of them sneaking off together, neither have said anything.  But for once, Quentin thinks the chaos of Fillory may be working on his and El’s side, because it doesn’t really seem like either of them _have_ noticed.  Margo seems to have taken the ‘wait it out’ suggestion as precisely the opposite of what that means, and is following the council around yelling at them to _diffuse the fucking situation already, dickwads!_ and occasionally throwing things at the rioters out of the windows when nobody remembers to hold her back.  Julia, on the other hand, has taken it upon herself to help keep daily life at the castle afloat, and seems to have made friends with a few of the overworked servants; Q only catches a few sporadic glimpses of her over the week, but each time she seems to be smiling and helping someone with something, which feels good to see.  Certainly neither of them seem to care much about where their respective best friends are sticking their dicks during a siege.

 

* * *

 

 

Eliot lets out a contented sigh, and drops his head into Margo’s lap.

As much as he’s enjoying being so wrapped up in Q lately, and as much as he’s _definitely_ enjoyed the morning fuck and two separate blowjobs he had over the course of today, he’s been seriously lacking in Bambi time lately.  Even as long as since he and Q got back from the mosaic, Eliot feels like he hasn’t _really_ had a proper hang out with Margo, not the way they used to.  Everything’s been so fucking busy, as always, and to Margo he was only gone a day in all that time so he knows she doesn’t feel like he’s neglecting her.  But to Eliot, much as he’s tried to slip seamlessly back into his old life, the truth is, he didn’t see his best friend for more than two years. He has a deficit of Margo and he needs to start building his reserves back up again.

So in a way, he’s grateful to the fucking peasant uprising, because at least it’s given them all no choice but to abandon their separate tasks for a minute and just _settle._ One fucking evening where they can grab an entire armful of wine bottles and head to the comfortable parlour full of plush couches and ornate armchairs and a crackling fireplace which adjoins to Margo’s room.  They’ve already gone through more than a couple bottles of wine, and the fire is starting to burn low, but El’s too relaxed to go and tend it.

“Stroke my hair,” he instructs Margo, and she flicks his forehead for being demanding but still immediately takes up the task.  Eliot sighs with contentment, thinking back to a hundred different nights at Brakebills spent just like this, when he and Margo deemed the whole rest of the world unworthy of their time and just folded themselves up in each other instead, just living the exciting bubble of a friendship so intense neither of them quite knew what to do with it at the start.  They’ve been through more shit now and they’re more aware of the chinks in their own armour, but this still feels wonderful, and it still makes Eliot think about how much he just adores her, and how much he adores _this_ ; his Bambi Time.

And, okay, so Quentin is technically here too.

But he’s the quiet sort of tipsy he gets sometimes, so his presence doesn’t feel obtrusive, and seems to be enjoying himself just curling up in an armchair opposite them and watching Eliot and Margo.  

It’s amazing, sometimes, Eliot thinks, how Quentin is the only person who’s ever really managed to wiggle his way into the _Eliot and Margo_ dynamic without it feeling like something’s coming between them.  It’s probably because the both of them adore Q in equal measure, although Margo’s much less likely to admit it.

Mostly, Eliot and Margo talk, recalling some stories from their early days at Brakebills while Quentin hangs on their every word.  Then, finally, the embers in the fireplace are in danger of going out altogether, and Fillory is going through a cold spell at the moment which is only abetted by their drafty stone castle; that _can’t_ do.

“Q, the fire’s going out and I'm cold, go fix it,” he instructs, every inch a High King as he reclines louche in Margo’s lap with his goblet of wine and meets his favourite boy’s eyes across the room.  Margo makes an amused noise above him, which makes Eliot grin, nearly pleased with himself for being demanding, in that way only Margo makes him enjoy his worse tendencies.

“You know, you _could_ get up and do it yourself,” Quentin snarks, although he’s already rising from his chair.  "You're actually closer."

“But you’re so much _better_ with fire than me.  And I’m so comfy here.”  Eliot pouts exaggeratedly until Quentin cracks a smile, and then leans back in Margo’s lap, content with his persuasion tactics; Quentin, meanwhile, crosses the room and efficiently stokes the fire, throws a couple more logs on top, and returns to his armchair.  He perches in the chair, sat back on his heels with both hands wrapped around his wine glass. It’s nearly unbearably cute.

“If you’d have asked me, I would have bet Quentin was the last person in this room who knew how to tend a fire,” Margo drawls, as she props her feet up on the low table in front of them and crosses one bare ankle over the other, her heels having been abandoned several drinks ago.  “Like, ten out of ten, most likely to accidentally set himself alight and die in the process and also burn down the whole castle while he was at it. No offence, Q.”

“Uh,” says Quentin, rather pointedly.  “I mean, a _bit_ taken.”

“Bambi, don’t be mean.”  Eliot’s admonishment is half-hearted at best; he loves when she’s catty.  “Q got very good with the fire while we were living in Fillory. I was the one who kept nearly burning holes in the roof while I was cooking.”

“Because you always had to show off and make those huge flames!  It would be fine if you'd just cook like a normal person,” Quentin interjects, with the heat of someone who's said the same thing a hundred times before and never made any impact.

For a moment, their eyes meet across the space, and Eliot’s chest feels warmed by more than just the wine, more than just the rekindled fire.  He feels absolutely drenched in the pure cosiness of Quentin Coldwater, and the memories of two whole years with him, and the hopes for as many more as he can possibly steal with his greedy hands.  From the way Quentin is looking at him, ruddy cheeked from the alcohol and smiling so hard that his eyes have gone scrunched at the corners, Eliot nearly dares hope for a moment that Q might be thinking the same.

Then ––

“You two never talk about that,” Margo says, and Eliot goes still.  “Your little sojourn into the woods, or whatever the fuck it was. Not since that first night you got back.”

She has a point.  Even just with each other, they’ve mostly been avoiding the subject, only talking around it obliquely, with little references to conversations they had during their time there or things they learned, but never straightforward reminiscing, like that’s just another thing that would become far too intimate for the box they’ve carefully carved their relationship into.  They talk about it even less with the others, though; or Eliot certainly does. He supposes Quentin could be off having long, deep chats with Julia about it every single night, but it doesn’t seem like it.

“Through no lack of love,” he assures Margo, draining the dregs of his wine and then sitting up out of her lap to pour himself another glass.

“It’s just sort of difficult to talk about two whole years in a _really_ different place with people who weren’t, uh, there,” Quentin quickly jumps in to explain.  Without looking, he holds out his own glass for Eliot to top up too, while he’s got the wine out; El gives him a portion so generous that it nearly sloshes over the rim.  He likes Quentin drunk.

“Try me,” Margo challenges.  Her arms cross over her chest and she raises an eyebrow at the both of them, but it’s the set of her lips which make him know she means business.  Sighing, Eliot tries not to think about the Big Thing –– the _main_ reason he hasn’t gushed to her about every single aspect of their time there, the Sex With Quentin of it all –– and gives in, because he knows her inquiry will be worse if he doesn’t.

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, I don’t have a fucking list of questions prepared.”  Eliot resists the urge to point out that that is a vast oversight on her part.  “You’re both just different since you came back. I mean, El, you’ve been drinking at _least_ sixty percent less booze, and Quentin’s not doing nearly as much nerdy stress spiralling as he used to.  I wanna know what the fuck went on there.”

“Two years is a long time,” Quentin says diplomatically.  “Well, longer than two years, technically, so, like –– we both just grew up a bit, I guess.”

“Also, honestly Bambi, the rural depths of Past Fillory just _didn’t_ have the wine selection I’ve become accustomed to.  I had no choice but to switch to herbal tea for the sake of my taste buds.  I assure you I’m still far from sober.”

Rather pointedly, he begins on his third glass of wine.  

“Definitely not sober,” Q agrees, lips twitching with amusement.  “The only way you got through most of that first year was getting drunk with breakfast.  And getting _me_ drunk too, by the way.  You were a total bad influence.”

“Oh, don’t act all innocent, Q.  You’re the one who wanted to try those hallucinogenic pears last winter, I still haven’t forgotten about that.  We were out of commission for a week.”

“Hey, I just thought they might open us up to the universe a bit and help with the beauty of all life thing –– you’re the one who baked them into a _pie_!”

Eliot rolls his eyes and takes another sip of wine.  That week-long trip _was_ very fun, and included a lot of extremely confusing but mind-expanding sex, but he still likes to bicker with Q over whose fault it was that the effects didn’t wear off in an hour like they’d been _promised._ He’d say something to that effect now, but when he turns back, Margo’s still looking at them with her evaluating gaze, like something’s just not adding up.

“You seem _happy,”_ she finally says.  “That’s what it is.  What the fuck’s up with that?”

It’s a startling revelation.  The kingdom is going to shit, magic is still turned off, the quest keeps getting more dangerous with every new step they take, his wife is grieving –– by all means, Eliot has more means to be miserable than he ever has.  But the truth is, he’s not. This past year, Eliot has felt closer to _okay_ than he has in a really, really long time.

“All that pre-industrial countryside air, it’s just good for the soul,” he tells Margo breezily, waving an artful hand through the air, and collapses back into her lap.  “Come on, drink your wine, you’re a glass behind and we can’t have _that._ And do you know Quentin’s never heard the story about when we messed up the circumstances for a portal to Spain and ended up swapping bodies for a week?  You’ve _got_ to tell him how you fixed it.”

Margo still seems curious, but there’s no better way to divert her attention than to get her telling a really good story about herself, and her eyes light up as she turns to Q, ready to regale him.  There, Eliot thinks: problem solved. Quentin seems happy too, eagerly leaning forward in his chair and leaning his weight on the wrong elbow and sloshing wine all over his hand.

If he’s honest, Eliot doesn’t feel great about lying to Bambi.  But it’s worth it in the end, if he gets to have this: his two favourite people in one room, the wine flowing and the fire low, his head in Margo’s lap, and his eyes on Quentin’s gentle face.  With nights like this, Eliot thinks, it’s no _wonder_ he’s the happiest he’s ever been.

* * *

 

 

On the seventh day of the lockdown, Tick Pickwick rounds up all the ‘Royals and Royal-Adjacents’ –– which just means El, Margo, Quentin, and Julia, apparently –– and fixes them with a purse-lipped look which just _barely_ counts as a smile.

“The council has a suggestion, Your Highnesses, if it please you.”

“Literally fucking any suggestion that isn’t just hanging around with our dicks out would please me at this point,” Margo says, clicking her fingers impatiently.  “So yes, out with it, hurry it up.”

“We simply feel talks may go, ahem, a _touch_ better if the children of earth were _not_ here for them.  Given that you have access to the portal back to your world now, it may be better if you take refuge there for a little while.  Perhaps just another week or so would help.”

So.  Quentin tries not to feel like they’re being kicked out of their own kingdom for being more trouble than they’re worth (which, like, they definitely are), and it’s back to the Physical Kids Cottage they all go.

 

* * *

  
Fen comes with them back to earth.  It’s the first time Quentin’s seen her since she found out Fray wasn’t hers, that her real baby had died; she’d locked herself up in the room at the castle where they kept all the bunnies, and asked not to be disturbed all week.  She looks like someone grieving, Quentin thinks, but also like she’s doing remarkably okay for the circumstances. She’s not gone mad with her grief like he remembers she did before; instead, she seems to be steadfastly surviving it.  

He doesn’t quite know what to say to her, but she disappears up to a spare room in the cottage as soon as they arrive anyway, so he’s spared from really having to come up with anything.

Out of the way of the uprising, back on earth once again, none of them really seem to know what to do.  Julia follows Fen up the stairs, though presumably is heading to another room. Eliot immediately makes drinks, because he’s Eliot, and they all sit around the empty living room of the cottage for a while, as Q works on the code in the next chapter of the quest book and Margo rants some more about ungrateful constituents, gesturing so emphatically that her cocktail keeps sloshing over her hand.  

“Ugh, I’m going to go change,” she eventually says, plucking at the huge chiffon-esque sleeve of her elaborate dress.  “Couture du Fillory is all well and good for ruling a kingdom in, but it sure ain’t fucking comfortable. Might as well enjoy jeans while I can.”

So she disappears, and then it’s just Quentin and Eliot.  Quentin sips at the violently pink cocktail El had served him, and wonders what he should say.  The fact that they’ve been frantically fucking all around the castle for the past week has not made it any easier for them to chat to each other casually, it seems.

“Doesn’t seem like Alice is here,” Eliot points out, after a little while, which at least saves Q from having to come up with anything, even if it’s the topic he’d have picked last in the universe.  “I haven’t, uh, actually asked how you’re feeling about her, lately. I know things are complicated.”

“Honestly, I’m trying to stay as far away from all that as I can,” Quentin admits, setting the book aside with a sigh –– he’s having no fucking luck with that code, he’s better off focusing on his cocktail.  “She wants me to give her space, and doesn’t wanna help with the quest, so I’ve got no reason to _not_ give it to her.”

“No reason?”

Is Quentin crazy, or does it sound a little bit like Eliot’s –– _checking_ , almost?  Even a tiny bit hopeful?

“No reason,” Quentin confirms, heartbeat picking up a notch.  They’re sat on opposite couches, El reclining casually and Quentin all bunched up with his knees tucked underneath him, and their eyes meet across the space.  Fuck, but Eliot has such nice eyes. Quentin can’t look away; it feels like the air is getting hot between them. “I mean, uh, obviously I still want her to be _okay,_ but the part of me that like, desperately wanted to be in a relationship with her or whatever died a long time ago, so I think it’s probably better if I quit following her every move.  We’ve both got other things to focus on now.”

“Mmm, okay,” Eliot says, and then nothing else.

Quentin is incredibly dumb, he realises quickly.  Eliot probably just wants to make sure he’s not getting involved with any drama.  Considering the _last_ time Quentin was dating Alice and then hooked up with El, it ended in the hugest most ugly drama possible and Alice giving Eliot a huge amount of shit and then Eliot promising to never betray her again –– well, it’s not that Eliot’s checking because he’d be _jealous_ if Quentin wanted to get back with Alice now, it’s just that he wants to avoid the drama again.

Quentin drains the rest of his cocktail, and then immediately gets up, using his empty glass as an excuse to flee the situation for a second.  He pretends he wants wine, suddenly, even though he was really enjoying those cocktails, just so it gives him an excuse to go to the other side of the room.

It’s as he’s crossing to the wine rack, trying to remember what that really good red that always makes him feel fucked up in about three sips is, that he suddenly spots a book left out on the table.  While Alice isn’t here right now, it’s clearly hers, because it’s sat with a pile of other books so advanced that nobody else would possibly be reading them, and Quentin also recognises her pencil with the horse-shaped eraser on the end.  A sense of unease floods his stomach, and he abandons the wine, looking at the book instead. Oh.

“Eliot,” he hisses, as he marches back across the room and stands in front of El, gesturing expansively back towards the books.  “Alice has a _Library book.”_

“So?” asks El, a little drunk and sleepy and far too cute to be processing the situation.  “Does the Brakebills library even still _exist,_ if Fogg’s selling the whole place?  I doubt she’ll get a late fine.”

“No, not a library book, a –– a Library book!  Capital L, El.”

“Far too many of those words sounded the same, you’re confusing my poor tipsy mind,” Eliot complains, rubbing at his temple, but then it seems to hit him rather suddenly.  He straightens up in his seat and his brow furrows. “Wait, _really?_ What’s she doing with the Library?”

“I have no fucking idea.  But honestly, Eliot, I have a _really_ bad feeling about it.”

* * *

 

  
Julia has never known Fen well.  

She’s never been as involved in the Fillorian side of things as the rest of their little gang, maybe partly because she wasn’t at Brakebills from the start and maybe even more because of everything with Reynard.  Regardless of the reason, it wasn’t until her Shadeless days that she even really spent any time at the castle in Fillory, and she’s not proud of how she was acting back then; she knows she certainly wasn’t making any friends.

In the last week, though, of the uprising at Whitespire, their paths have crossed a few times.  Fen has struck her as both a remarkably soft and a remarkably strong woman in equal measure, and, most of all, someone going through something really fucking shitty.

Julia can relate to that.

So, when they’ve been back on earth for a day and are settling into the Physical Kids Cottage, a place where Fen and Julia are technically the only two without official residence or rooms of their own, Julia sets about seeking her out.  She can’t find Quentin, who seems distracted lately anyway, by something Julia hasn’t yet quite put her finger on but is sure she will soon, but that’s okay: she doesn’t need him for this. It’s actually Fen she would like to speak to most.

“Can I come in?” Julia asks softly, as she pokes her head around the doorway of the room Fen has claimed as her own.  With pretty much everyone other than Todd and Alice being permanently moved out of the cottage by now, there are plenty of rooms to go around, but Fen’s chosen a rather small one at the edge of the house.

“Of course,” Fen replies, and she sounds happy enough, at least –– or if not happy, calm, maybe.  So Julia comes in, and sits at the end of the bed where Fen is laying in a pile of fluffy pillows, playing with someone’s borrowed iPhone.  “Did you know there are whole _games_ on these things where you can just use knives?  I’m playing one called _Fruit Ninja;_ you just use a sword to cut fruit as it falls from the sky!  It’s absolutely wonderful. It reminds me of harvest festival back home.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” Julia says, smiling across at Fen and only in the back of her mind wondering what the hell goes on at Fillorian harvest festivals.  “I actually had something kind of difficult to ask you, if that’s okay?” Fen gestures at her to continue. “It’s about fairies, Fen. Fogg –– do you know Dean Fogg?  He says there’s something strange going on. I went to speak to him a few weeks ago about these powers I suddenly had, and he told me about this, instead: that he knows someone on earth who’s claiming she can use fairy magic, because she _has_ one.  But nothing about it makes sense.  You know more about fairies than anyone else I know, and I need some help, Fen.”

Fen has suddenly gone pale, and Julia feels a hopeless twinge of regret for bringing it up.  She knows it’s bad to ask, but she –– she _does_ think she’s doing the right thing by wanting to help, too.

“I hate fairies,” Fen says, voice harsher than Jules has ever heard from her.  “After what their queen did to me? I don’t want anything to do with them.”

“Fen, I completely understand that.  Can I just show you something, though?”

Julia holds out her hand, palm facing up towards Fen, and takes a deep breath.

Then, she lets out her magic.  It starts as a flurry of sparks, but settles into something stronger, a ball of orange light in her palm, which Julia shapes and molds in front of Fen’s eyes.

With this action, Julia tells a secret.  Her secret is: she still hates how she came about this magic.  But after talking to Quentin a week ago, she did a lot of long, hard thinking.  And during the troubles at Whitespire this past week, Julia had set about trying to find any way she could help.  It had never been much –– she could only manage the tiniest of actions with her unfamiliar powers, like using her unreliable sparks to help light the ovens for the cooks, or making some rudimentary heat between her palms to dry clothes for the washing ladies.  But as small as those things were, every time she managed to help someone, it felt just a little bit better within her. A little bit more like the magic was _hers._ And every time it felt better, the magic got just a tiny bit stronger, too.

“Fen, I have this tiny spark of magic.  And it seems like when I use it to do good things, it grows.  I didn’t ask for it, but if I want it to be anything other than a burden, I have to use it.”

Fen’s face is wretched and pained and she says, “My daughter is dead because of them.”

“Okay.  Okay, I get that.”  Julia does, in a way; not because she was pregnant at the same time as Fen, because Julia’s pregnancy was nothing but horrible and terrifying and something she was eternally relieved to end.  But because Julia knows grief, and she knows how grief and despair and the hopeless need for revenge against beings you can’t possibly defeat can all twist together inside a person, so complex they nearly make you shatter.  “So let me help you get closure, Fen. Let’s find out what’s going on with the fairies, together, and settle everything once and for all.”

* * *

 

  
Down the hall, Quentin has no idea about anything dramatic going on with fairies, or anything else.  No, he has far bigger things on his mind.  He has emerged from the bathroom in his pyjamas, ready to head to bed, and then realised: he doesn't know  _where_ he's heading to bed.

He has a bedroom here of his very own, totally unobjectionable, actually a nice room full of all his things.  But Eliot has a room, too, and that's where Quentin had been reflexively heading to. 

The thing is, in the castle, it was easy to share a room with El.  The corridors were long and cavernous and nobody had a room near enough to Eliot’s that Quentin would be caught coming in and out; even Margo was several halls away, and always just sent a servant to fetch him if she wanted El.  Plus, with Eliot’s rooms being huge and multi-purposed, it wasn’t weird for Quentin to be hanging out in there even if someone _did_ find them.

But back here, at the cottage, things feel altogether different.  Eliot and Margo’s rooms are right next to each other, and in a world without magic, the silencing wards which once kept people from having to know too much about their housemates’ comings and goings are gone.  One wrong step, Quentin knows, and he could alert Margo to the fact that he’s sneaking into Eliot’s bed in the middle of the night. His own room is next to the one Julia’s chosen to stay in, so _she_ could notice too.  Even fucking Alice could hear them from across the hall if they accidentally get too loud.

So the reality of keeping it secret, of _sneaking around,_ hasn’t really hit Quentin until now, as he stands in his sweatpants and Fillory And Further t-shirt outside the bathroom, after everyone else has retired to bed, and wonders which door he’s supposed to go through.

Nerves tick at his stomach, and he admits to himself, as he presses the toes of one bare foot into his other ankle and wavers in the dark hallway: quite apart from all that, he’s not sure if Eliot even wants him to sneak in.

They’ve been spending every night together at the castle.  But it’s seemed –– justified, somehow. Like they got into that routine there and then it was just settled, but it still didn’t have to tug at the boundaries of being ‘friends with benefits’, as they’re calling it now, because it was established to mean nothing.  And maybe, partly, because as nice as Eliot’s rooms at Whitespire are, they don’t really feel like _his._ They have his fancy High King clothes and a few loose books, but all his really personal possessions, and the space he’s cultivated as his own, remains in Eliot’s room here, at the Physical Kids Cottage.  Entering that space feels oddly more intimate –– let alone staying the night in there.

Maybe, Quentin thinks, he should sneak into El’s room for a quick tumble, but then return to his own room to sleep.  That’s probably, actually, what most people who are casually hooking up do all the time. Shit. Should Quentin have been going back to his own room the second they both orgasmed all along?  Has El just been too polite to outright kick him out? That’s a horrifying thought, not half because Quentin sleeps better with Eliot beside him than he ever does without, even if they haven’t had sex.  Maybe Eliot is grateful to be back here and have a night to himself, though. Maybe _Eliot_ actually just wants a _break._

With everyone else in bed already, the house is quiet around him, so Quentin notices it profusely when the sounds of his own breathing begin to quicken in anxiety.

He stares through the dark space, lit only by a bit of moonlight coming through the window at the end of the corridor, between his own room –– the first door on his right –– and Eliot’s –– the third door on the left.  He can’t decide which one he’s supposed to head towards, and his brain seemingly won’t let him just choose one and commit to it, so he repeats the argument back and forth in his own mind over and over again.

Finally, though, he decides: his own room.  He’d rather sleep badly on his own for a night and risk _not_ annoying Eliot; he’d rather, in general, giving everyone space to minimise the chance of them getting sick of him, and that applies doubly to people he’s desperately in love with even though they’re endlessly out of his league.  Quentin doesn’t want Eliot to feel _obligated_ to put up with him, or put him up, in any way, ever.

Rather miserable but set in his decision, Quentin finally moves, taking a step towards his own room.  The floorboards creak immediately, because the cottage is that sort of house, now that all the spells holding it together have been taken away, but he doesn’t have anything to hide if he’s not headed to El’s room, so he just carries on across the creaky floorboards and cuts a clear path to his own room.

And then, two seconds later, Eliot’s door swings open.

“Hurry up,” Eliot whispers from the doorway, where he is wearing nothing but a mostly-open silk robe, and his soft curls are tumbling into his bleary eyes.  And then, when Quentin steps closer without even meaning to: “You take so fucking long to brush your teeth, Q, Jesus. Come on, which pillow do you want?”

So, trying not to look a gift horse in the mouth (but definitely looking _Eliot_ in the mouth), Quentin stumbles into Eliot’s room, and slides between the sheets of his bed, and looks around at all the little Eliot Things that make up this special room, the first room El maybe ever really considered a home –– and then kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, lazy and sleepy and soft, across the canyon of their pillows.  They don’t end up having sex, but, like, Quentin thinks, the ‘benefits’ in ‘friends with benefits’ can totally just mean gently kissing until you fall asleep in each other’s arms, too; the sex thing is never _specified_ in the name.

Anyway.  It doesn’t take long before Eliot is snoring, so Quentin forces himself to stop overthinking things, tucks his head into Eliot’s chest so that he can hear his heartbeat, and succumbs to sleep as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, let me know if there's anything u wanna see in the upcoming chapters, rate the finale 1 star on imdb, and leave me a comment if ya liked it!!
> 
> my magicians tumblr is [here](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com) ♥


	5. the music while the music lasts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this whole fic is like a thought exercise called: how dumb you can possibly let two individually intelligent people act?
> 
> also: oh, gawd. i just realised this chapter brought us to the 60k mark. within the space of a month. guys, i basically accidentally did nanowrimo and then some. i don't know HOW this has happened i usually don't write SHIT

_Music heard so deeply_  
_That it is not heard at all, but you are_  
_The music_  
_While the music lasts._

_––T. S. Eliot_

* * *

 

“Tick sent another bunny,” says Eliot, on the third morning of their fleeing from the castle, as he wanders into the cottage living room with a fresh coffee.  He’s not dressed yet, happily flaunting in his silk pyjama bottoms and an open robe which displays far too much of his chest for Quentin’s sanity; Quentin is still in pyjamas too, but he looks like a mess rather than something out of an Oscar Wilde novel, eating instant oatmeal out of a mug and picking at a hole in his sweatpants.  “He said we shouldn’t come back yet.”

“What a load of fucking bullshit,” Margo hisses, entering the room behind Eliot –– she, of course, is already fully dressed and looks like she could comfortably make an entire room of fortune 500 execs cower before her with her high heels alone.  She steals Eliot’s coffee mug right out of his hands and takes an angry sip. “We should be there, sorting those crazy fuckers out and reminding them _just_ whose kingdom it is.”

“I mean, is it _technically_ that crazy that they want to overthrow us, though?  Just, those rules about only children of earth becoming royalty were made by Ember and Umber just to fuck with things, and they’re both dead now, so…” Margo looks at Quentin like she’s about to rip his spine out of his mouth and smack him with it, and he promptly shuts up.  “Um! Never mind, you’re, uh, definitely right.”

“Oh, it’ll all sort itself out,” says Eliot, waving a hand through the air.  He most certainly doesn’t seem that bothered by the whole uprising thing right now.  This, of course, could have a _tiny_ amount to do with just how little sleep he got last night, because he was fucking Quentin into the small hours of the morning –– on the floor because the bed creaks too much, both of them muffling their noises into each others’ skin, and Quentin still has rug burn on his knees and an ache in his ass but it was _so_ good, for hours, and he’d do it all over again if he ––

 _No_ , Quentin reminds himself, _don’t think about that,_ and shoves another spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth, trying to ignore the flush that’s spreading down his neck.  The point is, El, didn’t get much sleep last night, and maybe that’s why he’s so blasé about Fillory.

“Fucking forgive me for being the only one who gives a hot shit about our kingdom,” Margo says, taking another sip of Eliot’s coffee.  Eliot hasn’t yet tried to ask for it back.

“Bambi, I _do_ care.  Don’t get me wrong, Fillory is entirely ridiculous and I hate it there at least sixty percent of the time, but it saved my life.  You know that. I owe that place, so I _do_ want to help.  I just think we need to trust that staying away for a few fucking minutes and letting them sort out their own feelings towards their alien rulers is probably the best course.”

Margo doesn’t seem exactly _happy_ with that, but she does finally hand Eliot back his coffee –– now half-finished –– so Quentin, observing from the sidelines with the same level of mild confusion he always reserves for their friendship, judges that she’s probably accepted the point.

Looking pleased with himself, Eliot drains the remainder of the mug and casually discards it on a side table, before lifting his arms above his head in a stretch which makes his robe fall the rest of the way open.  Q’s mouth goes dry around another spoonful of oatmeal, and then he’s no longer thinking about Fillory at all. El’s silk pyjama pants are hanging _dangerously_ low on his hips; Quentin’s gaze catches for a hopeless moment on the dark trail of hair leading down from his belly, like it’s practically begging for Quentin to follow it with his ––

“Well, I’m going to take a shower,” Eliot announces lightly, and strides off up the stairs.

Margo doesn’t seem to have much of any reaction to this, and instead heads off towards the kitchen, presumably to acquire some coffee of her own, her killer heels clicking against the floorboards like she’s tapping out her own frustration in morse code.  Which leaves –– just, Quentin.

Just Quentin, with half a mug of oatmeal that he no longer has an appetite for, and the image of Eliot’s body stuck in his mind, and the memory of the first day they got back from the mosaic, when they went to shower by themselves, and Q spent the whole time wondering if Eliot would ever want to fuck him again, and thinking about how Fillory didn’t have showers and thus didn’t have shower sex and how he’d _really_ like to have shower sex with someone other than Emily fucking Greenstreet at least once in his life, and, mostly, just _wishing,_ wishing that Eliot was there.

Now, Eliot is upstairs, getting into a shower alone.  Which is, like, pretty much a tragedy, right? What if he gets lonely?  What if there’s a spot on his back he can’t reach?

“I should, uh, go and get dressed,” Quentin announces to absolutely _nobody,_ because he is alone, but it feels important to have an alibi in place.

He waits three seconds to see if anybody calls him out on the incredibly flimsy excuse.  There is nobody else in the room, so nobody does.

 _Flawlessly executed,_ thinks Quentin, and abandons his oatmeal to flee up the stairs after Eliot.

The sound of the shower is already going in the bathroom nearest Eliot’s room.  A little detail about the physical kids cottage: none of the doors _actually_ have locks.  Everything used to lock with magic, because of course it did, that was the sort of thing Brakebills just took for granted.  In a magicless world, a lot of things about the cottage no longer work exactly right, so the locks are really the least of their worries, but Quentin still thinks that after a few months someone could have come up with something slightly better than the _occupied_ signs which now hang on the bathroom doors when they’re in use.

However, currently he’s nothing but grateful for the collective lack of problem solving by the residents of the cottage, because it means there’s nothing stopping him from just opening the door, and slipping inside.

He immediately closes the door behind him, feeling just the tiniest bit insane, because this is something he would have _never_ done if it wasn’t Eliot, but, well.  He lets out a shaky breath into the warm, foggy air of the room, takes a moment to appreciate the shape of Eliot’s body behind the shower curtain, long and lean enough that his arms are visible over the top of the curtain when he stretches them, until Eliot calls out rather casually through the steam, “Bambi?”

Right, because if anyone was gonna just walk in on Eliot in the bathroom, it would definitely be Margo.  Feeling the tiniest bit sheepish –– he really probably should have _asked_ if Eliot wanted to be followed into his morning shower, but, well, Eliot makes him a bit crazy like that –– Quentin calls out, “Uh, you get two more guesses,” and pads across the floor.

He’s just digging his bare toes into the damp bathmat, and wondering whether it’s entirely too presumptuous to start stripping already, when the shower curtain is suddenly ripped back.  Eliot is stood there, entirely naked and dripping wet –– _oh fuck he’s so gorgeous oh fuck he’s so gorgeous_ Quentin thinks so hard he goes dizzy for a moment –– and looking entirely thrilled.

“Oh, _much_ better,” Eliot says, a catlike grin turning sharp across his face.  “Why are you still wearing your drab little pyjamas, though, when you could be naked in here?”

Well.  That’s an invitation if he’s ever gonna get one.  Quentin immediately reaches for the hem of his t-shirt and tugs it over his head, abandoning it on the damp bathroom floor with little care, and unselfconsciously sheds his sweatpants too a moment later.  With almost anyone else, even someone he’d slept with before, he would have felt that little kick of nerves about getting naked in front of them, especially in the stark lighting of the bathroom, where it’s so much harder to hide than in a dim bedroom under the sheets.  But this is _Eliot._ Eliot has seen every inch of Quentin’s body in every possible iteration, by now.  There isn’t just no point to feeling self conscious, there’s no way Quentin even really _can._ Considering how out of his league Eliot is, Q finds that a little remarkable.

“Are you sure?  Cus I can, uh, go and get Margo for you, if you’d rather,” Quentin snarks, but the words lose some of their impact given that he’s already reaching out to Eliot’s shoulder and stepping up into the tub.  Eliot gives him a little slap to the ass, which, well, if it’s meant to be an admonishment for teasing, it _definitely_ doesn’t work.  Trying to chase away the hot thought which comes from the contact, Quentin muscles Eliot out the way and steps under the shower spray.

The water’s too hot, of course.  This may be their first shower together, but they talked plenty of times about temperature during their time in Fillory; Eliot was constantly complaining about how hard it was to have a proper hot fucking bath when you had to heat pans of water individually on a fire and pour them into a metal tub in the garden, and bathing in an ice-cold river was practically _barbaric,_ wasn’t it?  Quentin, meanwhile, has always loved cold showers, and at least lukewarm baths, and took great pleasure in how much Eliot snarked at him for even swimming in the river in the middle of winter.

Now he wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t reach up to adjust the temperature, since this _was,_ like, _technically_ Eliot’s shower first.

“Don’t you dare complain,” Eliot warms him, stepping closer so they’re both under the spray, and leaning over Quentin’s head to grab a bar of soap.  “I like my hot water. And my Coldwater, of course, but in entirely different ways."

Q rolls his eyes.  “You know, I should really start keeping track of how many times you make puns about my name when we’re bathing together.”

“It’s not my fault your ancestors doomed you to a life of miserable cold showers,” Eliot says snottily, and it’s just so very Eliot that Quentin simply has to kiss him.

He has at least the common sense to step slightly out of the shower spray, because he thinks they could both forget how to breathe and end up inhaling water real fast when they kiss like this.  It’s not quite the frantic, sex-frenzied kissing they’d been doing the night before, but it’s the sort of kissing that is searingly hot even when it’s slow; the sort of kissing which builds, and builds, and builds, even when you don’t know what it’s building to.

“I was going to offer to wash your back, but I think I like this more,” Eliot mumbles into Quentin’s lips, and the bar of soap goes slipping out of his fingers so that he can hold onto Quentin’s waist instead and push him against the wall.  The tiles are cold and Q flinches, about to complain about it, but Eliot cuts him off: “There, you were just saying you were too warm.”

“I never _actually_ said that,” Quentin grumbles, but it’s hard to remember what he’s supposed to be annoyed about when Eliot kisses him again, slow and deep and filthy as his tongue licks flat into Q’s mouth.  His hands glide across Quentin’s sides, slippery with soap, while Quentin works his own hands into Eliot’s wet hair, and moans against his mouth, just moans and moans and presses their hot wet skin close together, as close as he can possibly get.

His dick is getting the memo about the purpose of this shower rather quickly, and he looses one of his hands from Eliot’s hair to drop down between Eliot’s legs instead.  It’s ridiculously gratifying to hear the high intake of breath from Eliot when Quentin touches him. His dick is big even when it’s just starting to get hard, hanging heavy between his legs, and Quentin works his fingers around it, matching the pace of his hand to the pace of Eliot’s tongue as it fucks into Q’s mouth over and over again, until El’s totally hard, erection straining upwards and poking into Quentin’s belly as they press together.

“ _Mmmm,_ ” says Eliot, sounding positively sinful.  When their mouths break apart for a moment and Quentin glances up, he finds his favourite expression on Eliot’s face –– eyes closed, dazed little smile with his tongue peeking out between his teeth, the one he often gets during sex and almost never at any other time.  It’s like he can’t quite believe how good it feels. Like he’s enjoying himself more than he knew was possible.

It is both very sweet and _insanely_ hot.

“I would, uh, kind of really like to fuck in the shower someday,” Quentin says abruptly, which makes Eliot’s eyes flutter open just long enough to let out a tiny laugh.  “But considering this tub is, like, particularly small, I have a feeling I’d definitely slip and break my neck, and also we’re not alone in the house and it’s probably not that long ‘til someone comes looking for us, and also also, if we’re being totally honest, my ass still kind of hurts from last night ––”

“You’re the one who kept saying _harder, harder, oh, Eliot, pleeease just fuck me harder,”_ Eliot says, in a terrible impression of Quentin, and pinches at one of Q’s nipples.  Quentin’s dick twitches with pleasure, but he also rolls his eyes, to make sure Eliot doesn’t go getting any big ideas about himself.  Well, no more than he already has.

“I know, I’m not complaining!”  He seriously cannot stress how much he’s _not_ complaining.  “If you’d let me get a sentence out for once, you’d have heard that I’m about to offer to suck your dick.”

“Oh.”  Eliot brightens, and pushes his entire body closer against Quentin’s.  “In that case, I take back all my commentary. _Absolutely_ feel free to continue.”

 _I have chosen entirely the stupidest man to be in love with,_ Quentin thinks to himself, but mostly only fondly.  He pivots them around so that Eliot’s back is to the shower, the water hammering against him rather than reaching Quentin, and then kisses Eliot for a few more delectably slow minutes before he finally sinks to his knees.

The ceramic bottom of the bathtub is hardly nice to kneel on, but as always when faced with Eliot’s dick, Quentin immediately blocks out any lack of comfort in his surroundings and just focuses on getting his mouth on it.  The noise Eliot makes is beautiful, and Quentin sets about blowing him slow and deep and sloppy, pushing himself as close to deepthroating as he can manage now –– which is significantly more than he could a year ago although still not _perfect_ –– and running his hands up and down the backs of Eliot’s thighs in the warm spray of the shower, feeling his own dick pulsing with an arousal so hot that it’s almost looped back around to cold when Eliot tugs on his wet hair and says delirious things about Quentin’s mouth.

Doing this in the shower is exactly as good as Quentin hoped: wet and hot and sinfully slow in the way morning sex between them usually is, but ramped up even further by the new location.  Part of him wonders if he’d be able to come just from blowing Eliot, right now, which is –– _crazy,_ to think, but Quentin feels so turned on that he’s a little wild with it, bobbing up and down faster on Eliot’s cock, spit from his wet mouth mixing with the water of the shower, pushing back into Eliot’s hands in his hair until Eliot _pulls_ just the way Quentin likes.  Eliot’s shaky on his feet after a while, wavering back against the water, but Quentin doesn’t want to let him lean against the wall; it’s too sexy, seeing him get like this, seeing how much Quentin’s mouth is affecting him.

“Q,” Eliot gasps out, barely audible over the sound of the water.  “Q, oh fuck, teaching you that tongue thing was the best decision I ever m-made, Q, _Quentin_.”

Quentin recognises that tone of voice, and he gives a few last long, hard sucks before pulls back until just his tongue is pressing against the slit of Eliot’s dick, jerking him off quickly with one hand.

And then.

In the exact same moment.

Eliot says, “ _Fuck, baby, I’m gonna,”_ and cups Quentin’s face, and comes all over him.

And the bathroom door opens.

“El, I’m borrowing your mirro––” says Margo, getting two steps inside the bathroom before she freezes in place.  The shower curtain is still half drawn back. She can absolutely, _definitely_ see Quentin on his knees, his dick hard and his mouth streaked with come, and Eliot stood up above him, gently holding Quentin’s face, and, just, like, the entire thing about them being in the _shower_ together, and.  Well. To sum it all up, Margo announces:  “Well, _fuck.”_

 

* * *

 

This is the second time now, Quentin thinks, the _second time_ in the last couple of weeks that someone has interrupted them just after Eliot came but before Quentin got to.  Stumbling out of a delicious shower where he was certain he was about to get a reciprocal blowjob onto a cold bathroom floor to get all frantically tangled up in a towel with his dick still straining between his legs is no fun at all.  Margo just watches, something sharp and shocked in her expression, and doesn’t make _any_ effort at all to pretend she’s not watching him.

Quentin knows she’s technically seen him naked before because, like, _they had sex,_ but that was the whole dark bedroom thing.  She’s not Eliot; he’s still definitely self conscious about her seeing him like this.  Thank fuck he at least stuck his face under the shower spray to wash the come off it before he hopped out of the tub, Quentin thinks, slightly hysterically, like he might burst out laughing any second or possibly actually just pass out.

“This isn’t –– uh, _uh,_ this isn’t what it ––” Quentin begins to stammer, before realising there is definitely no way at all he can write this off as _not what it looks like._ She saw everything.  Literally, the climax of the whole thing.  Short of pretending they’ve been possessed or eaten some Fillorian sex pollen by accident, there’s no explaining this away.

The careful lines between their relationship, the safety in secrecy, the way Quentin could always comfort himself that at least nobody else would realise his painfully unrequited affection for El because they didn’t realise Eliot and Quentin’s friendship had crossed the boundary into being _like that_ at all –– all of it shatters, in a moment.

Eliot, who is far more casual about everything, always, turns the shower off with a sigh and then stands stark naked in the tub, raising an eyebrow down at Margo.

“We’re just blowing off some steam, is what he means.  Don’t get the wrong idea,” he says.

“ _Blowing_ sounds about right,” Margo exclaims.  The longer she looks at them, the more some uncomfortably _knowing_ expression grows in her eyes, even as the shocked set of her mouth remains unchanged.  “How long has this been fucking going on? I mean, I don’t know how Q rolls, but _I_ don’t let guys give me a facial on the first date.”

Quentin’s face goes impossibly redder, and he covers it up with his hands before he says, “Jesus, Margo,” but nobody actually seems to be paying attention to him.

“It just started when we were in Fillory, on the quest,” Eliot informs her, and Quentin peeks through his own fingers in time to see Eliot reaching for a comb to brush out his wet curls, like _none_ of this has interrupted his morning routine.  “About a year ago.”

“A _year?!”_ Margo shrieks.  Even Eliot flinches a little under her intensity; Quentin is glad El didn’t mention that it’s more like a year and five months, at this point.  “That would make it the longest relationship of your life, El, and you didn’t _tell_ me?”

“Calm down, Bambi, and don’t say the R word.  Two years is an awfully long time to be stuck with just one other person, that’s all.  It was a very natural form of stress relief.”

“ _Stress relief?_ That’s what you’re doing with?” Margo’s voice is pitched to nearly hysterical, now.  Quentin feels the particular sort of mortification which makes you go ice-cold in the middle and flushed hot everywhere else, and closes his eyes, and then opens them again, and grabs for his sweatpants on the floor.  “Jesus fuck! I thought Q was still getting all freaky with Quinn, anyway.”

“That’s been over for a while,” Quentin quickly interjects, while trying to drag his sweatpants up over his wet legs without removing his towel.  It’s not a very graceful maneuver, and his elbow smacks into the wall several times, but he refuses to move further into the room –– huddled in this corner, as far away from Eliot as he can get in the small bathroom, is the _only_ place that feels safe, like if he takes a single step closer he thinks Margo will suddenly realise everything, all of Quentin’s pathetic feelings, all at once.  When he stands too close to Eliot he just radiates hopeless love, and he _knows_ it.

“Is this why you didn’t wanna bang that palace guard with me last week?  He had an _eight pack,_ Eliot.”

This is the first Quentin has heard of any palace guard, and a hot spike of jealousy taps through his chest before he can help it.  He shoves the feeling incredibly deep down and buries it in a locked box, before working an entirely casual expression onto his face, and snagging his t-shirt off the floor.  He tugs it on, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of fabric sticking to wet skin, and determinedly doesn’t say anything about how he _sort_ of has abs too.  Like, under the surface.  He’s a bit too skinny and doesn’t exercise nearly enough outside of life and death situations, sure, but if he tenses just right and sort of curves his back, you can tell that they’re _there,_ anatomically speaking.

“This has nothing to do with that,” Eliot is saying, while Quentin is doing all those mental acrobatics.  “I really did just need to go over the paperwork for the delegate from the Floaters. _This_ is purely transactional sex.”

Right, Quentin quickly reminds himself, as he tucks his wet hair behind his ears and tries to catch his breath, still pushing himself into the corner of the bathroom like he might be able to phase right through the wall.  Right: even if Eliot didn’t go and fuck a castle guard, there’s nothing stopping him from doing that if he _wants_ to.  They’re certainly not exclusive.  Or they’ve never said they’re exclusive, at least.  No, they definitely aren’t; that’s not part of being _friends with benefits._

“Look, darling, we weren’t hiding it spitefully, I promise,” Eliot continues.  “But it’s just very casual, so we wanted to keep things on the down low. There are already messy romantic entanglements between half our friends; we don’t want to add to it, because the odd hook up just isn’t a big deal when we’ve got the fate of the world on our shoulders.  Can you just promise you won’t tell anyone?”

Margo surveys them both shrewdly, arms crossed tight across her chest and lips pursed, before finally sighing.  Her gaze flicks up and down Eliot’s body –– still entirely naked, stood altogether casually with his weight resting on one hip and his eyes unflinchingly meeting hers –– and then Quentin’s –– folded into the corner with panic, his sweats twisted awkwardly onto his damp body, face bright red and trying to hide behind his wet hair.

“Oh, fine _._ Your dirty secret’s safe with me, boys.  But I’m not done with you yet.” And then, altogether more terrifying than anything she’s said up to this point, she’s suddenly _smiling_ .  “I need _deets.”_

Well.  Quentin takes that as his cue to finally stammer something unintelligible and flee from the bathroom, absolutely mortified.

At least all that _thoroughly_ killed his boner.

 

* * *

  
  
Quentin goes back to his room and puts on some new clothes and half-dries his hair, but he’s feeling entirely too restless and embarrassed and nervous in the face of everything –– of changing perceptions of their relationship, of the vulnerability of being _known_ by someone other than El, of lines which will have to be redrawn in ways he doesn’t yet know.  So he takes the quest book and heads back downstairs, wondering vaguely if there’s any such thing as a herbal tea strong enough to knock all _this_ anxiety out of him.  Maybe chamomile.

The kitchen isn’t unoccupied when he goes in there to search for a teabag, though; instead, he finds Kady.  She’s eating an apple with a knife, something Quentin has always thought looks _so cool_ in movies but is terrified to even attempt.  He abandons the quest book on the table near where she’s sat, and goes to root through the dusty back of one of the cupboards, where the now-gone Physical Kid with the tea obsession always kept their best stuff.

“Uh, have you seen Alice around, by the way?” he suddenly remembers to ask.  It’s a bit hard to remember why he was so concerned about that Library book he’d found with her things, now, considering Quentin’s entire brain is still melting with embarrassment and anxiety, but he thinks it’s still best to check.

“Nope,” says Kady, just as Q’s fingers finally close around a packet of tea.  He pulls it out and inspects the label –– it’s some sort of rose one, which sounds calming enough, so he dunks it into a mug of hot water immediately.  “I mean, I guess she’s _technically_ living here, but I don’t think she’s spending too much time at the cottage, man.  I’ve been here 24/7 since I got outta the hospital, and I’ve only bumped into her once.”

Oh, right: the hospital.  Awfully, in the wake of _everything_ else, Quentin had sort of forgotten about that.

He turns back to the table with his tea, wrapping one of his fingers up in the string of the teabag and bobbing it awkwardly as he takes a seat opposite Kady.

“I wanted to ask.  Uh. How you’re doing, after all that?  The hospital, I mean.  Are you good?”

“Oh, just _peachy,”_ Kady snarks back, sneering at him _._ “The straight-jacket is a real good look for me, so, like, my self esteem has never been better.”

“Okay, stupid question,” he agrees.  Fuck, he remembers how much he always _hated_ the way people treated him when he was right out of the hospital.  Dancing around him like he was a bomb with a pressure sensor. Asking him _over_ and _over_ again how he was feeling, in simpering voices he could never stand.  “I just mean, I, uh, wanted to say. That if you want to talk to someone who gets it.  I’m here.”

Kady eyes him, suddenly wary.  “I wouldn’t have pegged you as an addict, Coldwater,” she says, speaking the words cautiously, like a test.

“Not like that,” he says awkwardly, tugging a little more on the string of his teabag.  “Just, uh, the other parts of it.” Hit with a sudden memory, he can’t help but ask, “Hey, is Nurse Kinney still there?  She used to put my wristband on so tight that it cut off my circulation. Every fucking time! I don’t know if she had some sort of kink for making people’s hands fall asleep or what.”

He sees the moment Kady gets it.  Gets that he means –– not just in general, but that he’s been in _that_ specific ward before, that he _knows_ exactly how it feels to be there, even if their issues were wildly different.

The way she looks at him just then is entirely different to how she has ever looked at him before, but Quentin, oddly, doesn’t feel judged.  Kady is an entirely judgemental person, and he usually withers under her stare if she turns it on him in full force. But maybe for the first time since he’s known her, this almost feels a little bit like –– like _bonding._

“Yeah, that bitch is still there,” she finally says, slowly.  “You gotta figure out how to adjust the band with your teeth, that’s the secret.”  And then, as she cuts herself another slice of apple, “You know, this explains a whole lot about you.”

“Yeah, well.”  Quentin doesn’t have much else to say to that: he’s well aware of his own issues, and how painfully obvious they often are, even to people who don’t know him that well.  He’s also well aware that at the moment, his own mind is the least of his problems. “You can’t judge me too hard. We’re in the same boat, now.”

“It’s a shitty boat.  Full of holes.”

Quentin lets out a sudden laugh, surprising himself.  “Yeah,” he agrees, “A really shitty boat. Nobody even gave me any oars.”

Kady smiles at him.  It’s not a particularly _soft_ smile, but it’s a smile, and it might be the first time she’s ever given him one.

Quentin finally unwinds the teabag string from his finger, rubbing at the thin red welt it’s left where he tugged it too tight against his skin, and takes a sip of his tea.  Kady eats another slice of her apple.

For a minute, they just sit, in what some might call companionable silence.  Q knows chaos is about to descend soon, but it’s nice to have that, just for a little while.

After a little while he picks the quest book back up, even though he’s having no luck with the maddening code this newest chapter is in, and flicks through it while he drinks his tea.  Kady peers across the table at him and asks with her mouth full, “What you doing?”

With a shrug, Quentin turns the book around to show her.

“It’s, uh, the new quest.  So, kinda important.” He lets out a wry huff of laughter.  “But also possibly impossible. This whole chapter is in some sort of code, and I just can’t crack it.  I was gonna ask Alice for help, but now, uh, well, she’s not around, and there’s something going on with her, so I don’t want to ask her until I know ––”

“You don’t need Alice for this,” Kady suddenly says, throwing the core of her apple onto the table and snatching the quest book with both hands.  Quentin’s fingers follow it in an aborted little motion before redirecting back into his hair instead.

“Uh, what?”

That’s the exact moment that Margo and Eliot wander into the room.  Eliot is now sharply dressed, and Quentin’s mouth goes dry, so he takes a huge mouthful of tea to cover it up, decidedly not meeting either of their gazes, even when Margo zeros in on him with an incredibly sharp expression.  They were clearly talking for all this time. Quentin wonders what Eliot told her –– if Margo now knows, like, _every_ intimiate detail of his sex life, or, far worse, if she’s realised that his actions are clearly that of a man hopelessly pining for someone he’s supposed to view only as a friend-plus-blowjobs situation.

Luckily, nobody has to think about any of that right now, though, because Kady has only gone and solved the whole stupid code that Quentin’s been despairing over for more than a week.

“It’s not code, you dick.  That’s how they wrote musical notes in medieval times.  This is a _song.”_

 

* * *

 

“The scale didn’t start with a C back then,” Kady explains, in the next room, as she and Quentin and Margo and Eliot all gather around the piano, and she slaps the quest book onto the music stand.  “So this is an A _._  I guess this book isn’t all that up to date.”

“That’s an understatement,” Quentin mutters, thinking of some of the convoluted language the past chapters have confused him with.  “But –– wait, okay, so, how do you know all this?”

Kady shrugs at him.  “I’m good with music.  I grew up with music. It’s what my mom used to take her clothes off to for money.”  Quentin –– does not know what to say to that. Kady rolls her eyes. “Oh, save the judgement.  She was good at it. And it paid for piano lessons.”

With that, she settles down onto the bench and plucks out a short tune, each note corresponding to one of the strange coded shapes in the chapter.  And then, when her finger lands on the last note, all of them gathered with baited breath behind her shoulder ––

It’s instant.

 _Boom._ Everything changes.

The lights don’t so much _come on_ in the cottage so much as they _suddenly are on,_ no transition between states; and not just lights, but coloured lights, and the fractured reflections of a disco ball which makes Quentin squint as he turns his head up in confusion –– and there’s _music_ , pulsing and entirely different than a gentle piano song, and the room is hotter in the way it can only be when filled with a hundred dancing bodies, and the sounds of conversation, laughter, _life_ are ringing out around them.  Someone knocks into Quentin’s shoulder and spills rum on his shoes, then immediately twirls off with a laugh.  In his eyeline, a circle of strangers in oddly vintage outfits clink their glasses together and then down a round of shots.  Where the cottage was abandoned a moment ago, it’s now full to the brim, and he whirls around, wide-eyed and uncomprehending in the chaos.

“AAAAND NOW,” a loud voice announces, “THE MAN OF THE HOUR, THE KING OF PARTYVILLE HIMSELF…..” And all eyes turn to the top of the stairs; a figure there produces an enormous bong and sends a wave of smoke rushing down the whole staircase, just as the upbeat song begins to crescendo around them.  “JOOOOSH HOBERMAAAAAN.”

Well, thinks Quentin: what the _fuck?_

 

* * *

 

“So, we’re in a musical now, right?  Can we all agree on that right off the bat?” Kady asks, as the epic dance routine draws to a close around them and Josh slides to the floor on his knees, polishing off a last riff of air guitar.

“I was thinking more like hell,” Quentin says, because of, well: everything about this.  “Do we know _any_ of the people here?”

He turns to Eliot as he says that, because Quentin doesn’t recognise a single face other than Josh, but he’s Quentin and that’s probably not surprising; Eliot, on the other hand, is king of the Brakebills party scene, and would always know the names of everyone who set foot in the cottage, even at their wildest gatherings.

“Not a one.  They all seem more like extras than honoured guests, if you ask me.”

The more Quentin looks around, the more disconcerting things get.  The piano has disappeared, for one. Every picture on the walls is suddenly a portrait of Josh.  All the books on the shelves have changed from magical textbooks to _A Bong Shot: the Biography of Josh Hoberman._ All the clocks are stuck on 4:20.  Most concerningly, there no longer seems to be a front door.

Quentin goes to say something about how incredibly worrying he finds all of that, but Josh is suddenly hopping up off the floor and heading towards them, brandishing a bong in one hand and waving with the other.

“Guys!  So glad you could make it, seriously, dudes.  It’s been too long! Anyway, welcome to the party.  There’s only two rules here at fiesta de Hoberman: don’t stop til you drop, and _be_ the _vibe,_ which is currently Midsummer Garden Party with No Spilled Tea, capiche?”

“I, uh, I don’t get what that means,” Quentin admits.

The music stops instantly.

Every single guest stops dead in their tracks and turns to face him, their eyes fogging over, their fists clenched at their sides.

“I mean, sounds fun!” he quickly corrects himself, scrambling for a half-full drink someone’s left on a nearby table and raising it in a cheers.  The music starts up again after a moment, albeit a little quieter, and most of the creepy guests turn back to what they were doing, so Quentin lowers his voice as he adds to Josh, “Hey, it’s good to see you, man.  Uh, so, actually, where are we?”

“What do you mean?  You’re at the _party!”_ another voice interjects, appearing at Josh’s shoulder with a dopey grin.  Oh, Quentin realises: there _is_ one more familiar face here.

“Hi, Todd,” says Quentin, as Todd gives every one of them his puppy-soft grin.

“Nope, I don’t recognise anyone here at _all,”_ Eliot mutters haughtily, but quiet enough that maybe only Quentin catches it; Quentin has to stifle a laugh into his sleeve for a moment.  Eliot’s grudge against Todd is –– irrational and ridiculous, but sort of an inside joke, at this point.

Margo appears to be bored of the reunion already, and taps one of her painfully high heeled shoes against the floorboards.  “Okay, someone needs to tell me what’s going on in the next three seconds or I’m gonna start popping balls.”

“Well, why don’t we show you?”  Todd holds up both hands, then, still smiling, and closes one palm over the other set of fingers, squeezing each in turn; a moment later, when he pulls away, four joints have appeared out of thin air.  Quentin’s stomach drops through the floor. “We’re not partying for _nothing._ We’re going hard because magic’s back, baby!”

“Todd, don’t say _baby_ , we’ve talked about this before,” Eliot reprimands, even as Todd is handing them all a joint each; Quentin’s sits between his numb fingers and he can’t even figure out how to drop it.

With a snap of his fingers, Josh lights all the joints at the same time.  Quentin, Kady and Margo all stare down at the smoke between their fingers, alarmed and confused.

Eliot seems mostly unbothered, and takes a drag of his immediately.

“H–– _how?”_  An entire quest full of keys flashes inside Quentin’s mind, but it’s a quest they’re not finished with yet, not even close, and none of that explains why they’d have been transported here because of Kady playing the piano song from the quest book.  He feels a bit like his head is gonna break.

“Bro.  Who freaking _cares?”_ says Josh, and then lets himself be twirled away by a couple of girls in crop tops.  As a parting tip, he calls over his shoulder, “JUST HAVE FUNNNN.”

 

* * *

 

The weird guest zombies seem to _really_ not like when you stop partying, so Quentin, Margo, Eliot and Kady find their way across to one of the couches to ostensibly join in the fun.  They all get a drink, and Quentin finds a deck of cards someone’s left laying around, begins to idly shuffle them and pull little tricks out of the air, the same thing he’s done at every party he’s ever sat awkwardly in the corner of his whole life.  None of his friends seem particularly interested in his tricks, but, well, he supposes they do have bigger fish to fry right now.

At least, some of them do.

“Fuck, this is quite a Riesling.  I have missed this part of living of earth, you know; I haven’t had a decent wine in _years,”_ Eliot says, and lets out a happy sigh, sinking back into the couch cushions with his eyes shut and swirling his glass.  There’s just the dregs left in it now, so Quentin, feeling a little skittish for a myriad of reasons, holds up his palm and curls his fingers in a basic tut until El’s wine refills itself.

Eliot, who has his eyes closed and is a little tipsy by now anyway, doesn’t seem to notice the gesture, and Quentin doesn’t make a point of it –– he’s just happy El’s enjoying the wine.  Unfortunately, Margo isn’t so oblivious. Quentin suddenly notices her watching him, one eyebrow sharply raised, over Eliot’s shoulder.

Fuck, Quentin remembers: she _knows,_ now, doesn’t she.  This morning seems so far away that he can barely recall it, but it comes flooding back in that moment, and his cheeks go bright pink.  He immediately picks up his own glass and takes a sip to hide his face behind it.

He’s drinking the same wine as Eliot, because he and Eliot are just used to splitting a bottle, by now.  Quentin’s not as much of a fan of this one as El is –– he prefers red –– but it gets the job done.

Margo doesn’t stop staring at him, so he keeps drinking his wine.

Kady, meanwhile, is the most agitated out of all of them about their new situation.  “Magic’s fucking back my ass. It won’t let me do anything other than party tricks,” she says eventually, having tried to pull out every bit of battle magic she knows.  That, Quentin agrees, is worrying.

“Okay, I think we can all agree this is definitely part of the quest.  I’m not quite sure, uh, _how_ Josh fits in, but we were brought here by the quest, so.  Maybe there’s some clues in what we can and can’t do?” he suggests, trying to force his brain –– which is all tangled up between wine and _Eliot looks so good in this lighting_ and _fuck, Margo knows, now, and she keeps looking at me_ and also some more wine –– to focus on puzzling this out.

“Well what we _can’t_ do is sit around here getting fucking blitzed on magical champagne!”

“It’s, uh, Riesling, actually,” Quentin mumbles, but his voice trails off because the room around them has suddenly gone silent.  It only lasts for a moment this time, most of the crowd going back to their party once Kady picks up a glass of whiskey and Eliot blows out a couple of smoke rings, but the army of faces staring down Kady makes it abundantly clear, once again: they’re _not_ allowed to be unhappy with this party.  

“Okay, we _need_ to talk to Josh,” Margo decides, the moment all the eyes have shifted off them and the music has restarted, loud enough to cover their dissentful conversation.  “He’s king of this party or whatever, and the only fucker here we recognise –– I mean, I _refuse_ to think Todd could have masterminded anything like this.”

“Yeah, talking to Josh is a good idea,” Quentin agrees, as he finishes his glass of wine nervously; he still feels like too many of the strange guests are looking at them.  “I’m thinking, uh, upstairs, away from prying eyes. But I dunno how we’ll get him away from the party, though.”

“Oh, leave that to me,” Margo says, briskly adjusting her cleavage.  Quentin tries really hard not to look, but he _is_ only human.  “We just need someone to stay down here and make sure all these motherfucking evil cyborg dancers don’t suspect anything.”

Kady heaves out an almighty sigh, and stands up.

“Leave that to me.  You guys just find us a way out of here.”

 

* * *

 

It probably shouldn’t surprise Quentin that Kady is an amazing singer.  He knows her least out of everyone in their little group, but what he does know about her is that she always seems to be amazing at exactly what they need in difficult situations, but also never advertises the fact that she’s insanely skilled at anything at all.  Between battle magic, sign language, historical music arrangements, and now singing, he’s wondering if perhaps she shouldn’t take over this quest for all of them.

Still, that’s not the concern right now, so he tunes out the sounds of her voice trickling up from the living room, and focuses on tying Josh Hoberman to a chair.  Margo has yanked the ropes on the other wrist considerably tighter, and Eliot is poking nosily around Josh’s room, so Quentin gives him a rather apologetic smile as he finishes up his end of the job.

“You’re not even a physical kid; _why_ do you have a bedroom here?” El asks, as he makes his way to the piano on the far wall and flicks through the music on the stand.  “Okay, I thought it might be the piano from downstairs, but no quest book, so.”

“Shit.”  Quentin _really_ needs that quest book back, and also really needs to know what’s going on in general.  “Okay, bedroom arrangements are the least of my worries right now. But, uh, yeah, Josh, you do know you’re a naturalist, right?”

“Right.”  Josh scoffs, alarmingly casual for someone currently tied in up ropes.  “That’s literally all you know about me, isn’t it.” Quentin sort of just –– blinks at him.  “Seriously, where am I from? What’d I study at undergrad? What’s the legendary third course I serve at all my dinner parties?  You’d know if you’d ever come to one. Do you even know when the last time we saw each other was?"

“N–not that long ago?” Quentin suggests weakly.  He’s sure it can only be a few weeks in earth time, although for him that’s complicated by nearly two and a half years of Fillory side-quests, so.

“I texted,” Josh says, and, shit, he really does seem kind of _sad._ “I texted all of you, a whole bunch of times, trying to come help on the quest, trying to see how you’re all doing.  Julia was the _only_ one who sent me a reply.  Seriously, check your phones right now.”

Quentin goes to reach into his pocket, feeling absurdly guilty, but Margo smacks his hand away before he can do it.

“Okay, nobody’s checking their phones for sad little text threads right now.  Hoberman, I’m gonna need you to nut up here,” she says, bracing her hands on the chair Josh is tied to and leaning in close to his face.  “Sorry if we hurt your precious little feelings, but we’ve been pretty fuckin’ busy, you know, ruling an alternate universe with _real_ spotty cell service, trying to bring back all of magic, some shit like that.  So we’re gonna need you to _work_ with us here, and tell us what we need to know.”

Josh doesn’t look very chastised, which Quentin has to hand it to him: far greater men have trembled in the face of Margo’s determination before.

“But you don’t actually need to know anything, right?  I mean, I don’t know why you’re doing all this, dudes. Quest is over.  Magic’s back.”

“Mmm, right,” says Eliot, his voice going high and his lips pressing together, like he often does when he’s gently mocking someone.  Quentin’s heart stutters but he tries _really_ hard not to focus on how much he likes Eliot’s soft voice right now.  “Well, in that case, you’ll have no problem magicing yourself out of here, right?”

They all watch as Josh’s hands strain fruitlessly at the ropes tying him to the chair.  Seriously, Quentin didn’t even knot his side that tight. It should be ridiculously easy to get free with even a spark of intelligent magic.

“That’s –– weird,” says Josh, eyebrows furrowing.

“It’s not weird, it’s called ‘you’ve been deluding yourself ‘cus you wanna party your tits off instead of noticing that all of this is supremely fucking wrong, and not even that well designed’.”

Margo, as always, sums it up very neatly.

 

* * *

 

“Wait, _Todd_ has the fifth key?”

Eliot refuses to believe that.  He simply refuses. It’s _Todd._ Todd has never held anything more important than a margarita.  And yet here is Josh Hoberman, spinning them a tale of woe and sad-straight-white-boy exclusion, telling them the next link in their epic quest is held by a man Eliot once found asleep in the reading nook spooning an empty champagne bottle and sucking his thumb.

Maybe El shouldn’t have smoked that whole magical joint downstairs.  Or drunk two glasses of wine. The most worrying part of it all is that he’s pretty sure the substances aren’t responsible for any of this madness; it’s just what’s happening to them right now.  Just their lives. _Terrifying_.

“I guess so?  I mean, he has _one_ of them, I haven’t been counting or anything.  I did try and ask him about it, to tell you guys, but then every time I’d bring it up the party would stop, and all the guests would do the whole, uh ––”

“Yeah, we lived it,” says Quentin across the room, sounding rather exhausted.  Eliot steadfastly forces himself not to look at him, not least because Margo and her judgemental eyebrows are just across the room as well.  “The whole, uh, ‘have a blast, or adios.’ Shouldn’t that have maybe clued you in to all this being, you know, fake?”

“It’s not fake!” Josh suddenly sounds like a petulant toddler clinging to a toy; Eliot raises an eyebrow, mumbles _calm down._ “It’s not fake, it’s just different.  I mean, magic’s been gone for months, of course it’s not gonna come back exactly the same.  You just need to learn to make the most of it. Like me and Todd are doing.”

“Listen, sweetie,” says Margo, in the way she has of making a pet name sound far more terrifying than an insult, “I’m gonna try to not crush your ego too hard here, but you need to get a fucking clue.  That Todd, down there? _Not Todd._ For one thing, I saw Todd about twelve hours ago back in the _real_ cottage, so he couldn’t have been holed up here with you for weeks.  For another, the real Todd couldn’t boss around a puppy, let alone an army of two-stepping _Love Shack_ extras.”

“Oh, yes, that makes far more sense,” Eliot instantly agrees.  Phew, he can wipe that off his list of concerns: Todd is still definitely Todd.

Unfortunately ––

“Uh,” Quentin says suddenly, half raising his hand like he’s trying to get attention in class.  “Just, on that note, real quick. Did anyone else notice the music downstairs has sort of stopped?”

“Shit,” says Eliot.

Margo, eloquently, adds: “Oh, fucking balls.”

 

* * *

 

Kady slides into the room panting, wearing a sequined dress which Eliot likes but would not have previously been able to conjure up the idea of her even entering the same _room_ as, although damn if she doesn’t pull it off.  She announces that they’d caught on to her distracting act –– though her version of recounting it has a lot more swearing –– just as the sound of thunderously marching feet crests at the top of the stairs, and dozens of repetitive fists begin pounding at the door, most definitely stronger than they should humanly be.

So, they do the only sensible thing.  They make Josh go and lead everyone in a hustle.

It buys a bit more time, at the very least, which never hurts in situations like this.  None of them have a fucking clue what’s causing this, as much as they talk it round in circles for a few minutes.  Quentin looks tired, exhausted really, like he’s struggling to care that much about the outcome of any of this at all, which isn’t like Quentin.  In the spaces between worrying about this weird party world and their ongoing quest to like, save reality, Eliot worries that he’s done something to upset Q, maybe in all this morning’s weirdness, or that Q’s having some sort of relapse into a bad brain space that Eliot is egotistical to think he could have any effect on at all.

Then again, he _did_ spent most of last night fucking Quentin into a haze and neither of them got more than a couple hours of sleep, so.  Maybe Quentin’s exhaustion isn’t that deep.

Eliot certainly hopes it’s that rather than anything emotional, but still, he’s so busy worrying about it that it’s no surprise he completely zones out until Margo next speaks.

“Shit, I swear there’s some sort of –– demon, I think?  It makes little pocket universes where everything’s happy as shit and then feeds off the joy of one person.  Could this be something like that? Wish I could remember more of the fucking details.”

“No, no, that sounds about right,” Quentin agrees, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear; most of it’s tied up in a little knot behind his head today, a style he’s been wearing more and more since their time in Fillory when it grew out even further than his shoulders, but there are always those little wispy bits escaping.  Fuck, Eliot needs to not be thinking so much about how he adores Quentin’s hair, how it’s always silk-soft when he puts his hands in it –– “Or something similar, at least. Something’s making this into a separate universe, but it seems like it’s just the cottage, right? There’s nothing outside?”

“No windows or doors, so yeah, seems like fuck all’s out there,” Margo agrees.  Eliot thinks he should maybe contribute a bit more to the conversation, except he doesn’t have much to say.  Even if everything’s a bit dire right now, it’s hard getting his mind off Quentin –– like always –– or Margo and the fact that she now _knows_ and also keep sneaking him little glances, making little comments –– and, well, just the fact that he’s enjoying the sounds of the songs downstairs.  Maybe it’s the fact that he smoked and drank more than everyone else. He can see how Josh got so caught up in this world.

Kady, as it happens, doesn’t share his positive opinions about the music.  As the volume raises downstairs, her nose wrinkles, and she makes a face like she’s getting a headache.

“This song _really_ doesn’t work in E,” she mumbles to herself.  Quentin glances at her, and Eliot glances as Quentin, just as Kady suddenly straightens up and adds, “Huh.  You know, when I was singing downstairs, demon-Todd made me sing in the E key, too.”

“So, he just really likes E?”

“A very nice girl did offer me some E down at the party,” Eliot mentions, “If that helps.”

Margo slaps him on the elbow.  “Jesus, El.”

“What!  I didn’t take it.”  He’d actually been rather proud of himself for that self control, in the moment.

None of this is having any impact on Kady, however.  She just mumbling to herself, “E, E, E,” and looking at the piano in the corner of Josh’s room.  Then, all of a sudden, she just –– lights up, and rushes towards it. “Wait, the _fifth key._ E is the fifth fucking key.”

Eliot kind of wants to groan, because he hates this kind of thing, but he is also very aware that it’s just the kind of clever looped meaning and puzzle solving that gets Quentin’s dick hard.  Sure enough, his cute little nerd rushes right over to the piano as Kady plays a note, and something inside the piano just goes _clunk._

Margo and Eliot exchange a glance, and then both quickly move over to the piano, too, just as Quentin pushes open the top.  There, tangled up in the mechanics of the instrument, is a gleaming key.

Kady immediately grabs for it, but her hand is knocked away.

“Wait, no fingers,” says Quentin, pulling his hand into his shirt to pick up the key through the fabric.

Beside them, Margo snorts.  “Bet that’s the first time you’ve said _that_ in a while.”

Quentin’s cheeks go bright red immediately, but he ignores Margo, which Eliot thinks is very steadfastly prioritised of him, as he pulls the key out the top of the piano.  He immediately heads across the room and sets the key down on a little table, his eyes boring into it like if he just stares hard enough, he can make it do what he wants to through sheer force of will.

“Let’s just –– wait a minute.  See if it tells us what it does,” Quentin says, still giving the key those wide eyes.

Maybe, Eliot thinks, he’s spoiled Quentin a little bit.  The problem is: when those determined puppy-eyes are turned on Eliot, he _always_ gives in.  It’s a powerful look.  But the key, being a relatively inanimate object, is not madly in love with Quentin.  At least as far as Eliot’s aware; it would be quite a plot twist if it was. And so Quentin’s eyes, no matter how powerful, aren’t going to work on it alone.

Kady seems to come to a similar conclusion a minute later, though hopefully with less awareness of Eliot’s total lack of integrity.

“Okay, I’m bored.  Fuck this shit.” She grabs for the key without another word.

Quentin immediately reaches out to try and stop her, his mouth dropping open with panic, but it’s only a split second before he freezes again.  Because the second Kady picked up the key, the whole room changed, again. The lights suddenly switched to a strange, washed-out neon, and across the room, when Eliot turns around in confusion, he sees a sign which has just appeared on the wall.

_QUESTERS EXIT HERE._

The door it’s pointing to was also _definitely_ not there before.

But that’s.

Not.

All.

“Penny?” says Kady, her voice thick.

Sure enough, Penny Adiyodi is suddenly standing in front of them.  He looks nothing more than annoyed for a moment, until Kady says his name; then his eyes go wide, and he smacks his hands against his own body like he’s trying to check he’s actually solid.

“Fuck, you can _see me?”_

“Have you been here the whole time?” Eliot asks, slightly alarmed.  It hadn’t really occurred to him, but Penny’s always lingering around these days, invisible unless one of them decides to pick up that one key.  He really hopes Penny didn’t see any of the, uh –– _revelations_ this morning, when Margo walked in on his shower.  Not that Eliot cares if Penny’s been popping through walls and watching him jerk off every single day, but he just knows Quentin doesn’t want more people knowing, and Penny seeing them in the act would probably embarrass Q so much that he’d never go without at least five layers of clothing ever again.

“Hell fucking _yeah_ I’ve been here the whole time!  You guys are such idiots! I’ve been telling you _all along_ that wasn’t Todd, but you’re all too dumb to bring the truth key with you, like you don’t _possibly_ think I could have something useful to say, like, oh, I don’t know, the hundred other times I’ve saved all your asses ––”

“We get it, calm down Casper,” snaps Margo, silencing him with one impatient hand.

“Okay, so we can see Penny now.  Is this just another truth key? They wouldn’t have two that are the same, though, would they?” Quentin asks, looking absolutely baffled as he reaches out to take the key from Kady, inspecting it closely.  “It doesn’t _look_ the same, but ––”

That is precisely when Julia’s voice suddenly appears.  They can’t see her, not like Penny; her voice is just in their heads, and sounds spacey and distant, which is either a side effect of this weird new magic, or she’s just having a hell of a day.

“ _Uh, guys_?” her voice rings out, firing around the inside of Eliot’s head like it’s disconcertingly following the pathways of his own thoughts.  “ _I’m sure this is really important, but I just nearly killed someone and then I sort of froze her in time and now I can’t figure out how to un-do it, so give me a minute_.”

Then, before Eliot has time to question _that,_ they can hear Josh’s voice too, asking them all to shut the hell up.

“Well, this is all nice and surreal,” Eliot remarks, feeling mildly dizzy, “I’m sure Dali would be proud and all.  But we have a clearly marked exit sign right there, and I was marinading a chicken for tonight back home, so, shall we?”

He bracingly ushers them all forwards, Margo in clear agreement as she tugs on Kady’s elbow.  It would be so simple –– so fucking simple, and so nice, if, for once, it ended as easy as this, wouldn’t it?

But Quentin Coldwater, love of Eliot’s life and supremely, annoying thorough supernerd, grabs Eliot’s wrist before he can make it to the door.

“No.  Guys, we can’t.”

Eliot looks longingly at the door.  It’s so nicely signposted.

Margo says, “I’m gonna need at least three good reasons why not, and preferably _before_ the dancing zombies downstairs try to eat us again.”

“Look, just –– think about it for a moment.   The quest brought us to a world made for the quester who always feels left behind.  We can suddenly all hear each other. It’s, this key, it’s _Unity._ ”  His fingers are twisting around the key as he talks.  His face is all open and earnest and Eliot’s stupid, stupid heart feels like it’s beating in his stomach, sickly and wrong.  “There’s actually, uh, a similar concept in one of the FIllory books, but it uses an enchanted necklace instead of a key, but –– basically, in that, the exit is a trap.  You can’t pass through it divided, or you fail the test. The only way to _really_ escape is to all unite.”

“Okay, so how do we all unite? Is that an orgy thing, because I’m not _not_ down, but I’ll need to work up to it a bit,” Eliot says, mostly just to watch Quentin’s reaction.  Q rolls his eyes.

“Not actually everything is about sex, Eliot.”

Eliot says, “Well, in my experience, it _mostly_ is.”  He’s definitely not thinking of the mosaic key, the possibly-magic-come or possibly-magic-love-confession which finally ended that leg of the quest, but he wouldn’t be _surprised_ if sex was what got them out of this one too.

But Margo kills his mood by muttering, “Yeah, you would say that,” and Eliot suddenly remembers that he and Q aren’t alone, and also that she _knows,_ now.

He promptly shuts up.  He doesn’t need to give her any more fuel for her fire, after all.  After Quentin escaped the bathroom this morning, Eliot mostly resisted Margo’s questioning, but the lack of information he gave her only seems to be fuelling her on more.  He gets that it’s a lot for her –– if _she’d_ gone off somewhere with their only other best friend and come back secretly fucking him, Eliot’s sure he’d have had a far more extreme reaction –– but right now he’s mostly just worried how Quentin’s dealing with it all.  If only they weren’t on a stupid fucking mortally important quest, he might have time to actually ask.

“Okay, fascinating as this all is, can we focus on getting the shit out of here?” Penny asks, exasperated as ever.

“I, uh, have an idea,” Quentin admits.  “But it’s gonna sound really, really dumb.”

 

* * *

 

Eliot is singing a Queen song with automatic background music to a room full of terrifying zombie-demons who all seem to know the choreography already, and it’s not even the strangest thing that’s happened to him this week.

 _Under Pressure_ feels almost too fitting for their lives these days, he has to admit, as he lets himself be carried along by the music-magic, voice rising high to harmonise with the others as they sing together; all of them here, even Penny though he looks pissed about it, and Julia in their heads, too.  Yes, they’re under a lot of pressure. The pressure of all of magic hanging over their heads, crushing them down; the pressure of Eliot’s own mountainous feelings, and his desperate inability to let them out.

Quentin is really not a good singer, and it’s remarkably adorable, because he’s trying so _hard._ That, Eliot thinks, sums up his Q perfectly.  Always trying, and making it abundantly clear that, actually, trying is the most important part of life, even if you never quite succeed.  Quentin just never gives up, and it makes him so strong.

Eliot’s feet seem to know a choreography he never learned, so he grabs Quentin’s hands and spins him around to Margo in one swift move.

 _Why can’t we give love one more chance._ Eliot doesn’t look at Quentin, he doesn’t, he doesn’t.   _Why can’t we give love one more chance._ Okay, fuck it, he looks at Quentin.

Quentin is looking back at him.

Eliot’s heart thuds, thuds, thuds in his hopeless chest.  He is such a fool, he thinks. Such a fool to be so in love with Quentin; such a fool to be risking a friendship as precious, as intense as theirs, over something as dumb as _feelings_ .  He’s playing with fire every single time he looks at Quentin.  He’s boiling dangerously close to a point he can’t come back from.  And Quentin’s looking at him, and singing lines about love in his terrible earnest voice, and Eliot knows it’s just part of the spell and the choreography, but he _hurts_ anyway.  Imagining if that was real.  Imagining a world in which Quentin wanted to sing him love songs just for the sake of it..

Eliot sings the next lyrics of the song with renewed vigour, throwing all his desperation into the melody.  Maybe if he focuses on this, everything else will fade away.

A moment later, though, he doesn’t actually have to focus on distracting himself.  The world decides to do it for him.

Because, just before the last bar of the song begins, one last familiar voice comes ringing into their minds.

_“Yes, okay.  I said okay! If the Library just gets me the siphon in time, I’ll attach it as soon as we turn magic back on.  You’ll be able to decide exactly how much everyone gets. Well, I for one just hope that’s not much at all.”_

 

* * *

 

 

And just like that, Quentin’s remembers the Library book left out with Alice’s things at the cottage, and the voice of his oh-so-complicated ex-girlfriend rings in his ears, and Quentin’s heart just shatters, shatters, shatters.

She’s planning to betray them.

Alice, who he nearly gave up everything to save but who never wanted to be saved at all, is finally getting her own back.

“ _Alice?”_ says Margo, her voice boiling somewhere between disbelief and anger.  But before anyone can say anything else or hear anything else, the key chooses that exact moment to bring everything to a close.  The neon lights snap off. The music ends. Penny disappears into thin air in front of them. And Quentin, Margo, Eliot, and Kady are thrown right back into the living room of the real Physical Kids Cottage, landing hard on their butts on the floor.

“Oh, you can _feel_ the boring,” Josh says, as he looks around the dimly lit, abandoned version of the cottage.  “Thank god.”

Kady immediately heads for the table and snatches up the truth key, letting out a gentle little sigh a moment later.  “Penny’s still here. Astral projectified, but still here. Just, uh, if anyone was wondering.”

Apparently Penny says something annoying that none of the rest of them can hear at that point, because she swiftly puts the key back down again when she’s satisfied that he didn’t just spontaneously combust or whatever when he disappeared in the musical universe.

“Well, I’ve gotta go wash off the memories of strip teasing an entire room full of literal party monsters, so. You know.”  She unceremoniously glances around at them all one last time, and then heads up the stairs.

“Hey, Kady, thanks,” says Quentin, stumbling after her and popping his head around the edge of the bannister before she can make it all the way up.  She pauses and looks back at him from halfway up, raising an eyebrow. “Just, uh, for today, and all of it. We couldn’t have done this one without you.  Like, seriously, I shudder to think how many years it would have taken me to realise that chapter of the book was even supposed to be music. So.”

Not sure quite what else to say, he offers her a smile, and is surprised to find Kady sort of returns it.

“Yeah, well, I want magic back as bad as the next girl.”  Her fingers dance along the wooden bannister for a moment, and then she admits, “Between all the life-and-death shit, it was almost sort of fun.  Let me know if another one of your quests comes up in one of my areas of expertise.”

“You seem to have plenty of those,” Quentin observes, because he thinks it’s nice to tell people complimentary things you’ve noticed about them, and he’s mostly noticed that Kady is just overwhelmingly competent at a whole lot of stuff.  She rolls her eyes, gives him one little salute, and then heads the rest of the way up the stairs.

Pleased that he’d at least got to say something to her, Quentin heads back to the others.  His mind is really still swimming with the _Alice_ of it all, but he’s trying so, so hard not to bring that up right now.  He knows if he says anything, everyone will just want to talk about it. Will want to yell about her, probably try and hunt her down and stop her, and Quentin does get that, and he is _furious,_ so angry it’s made him feel cold inside, and also just so confused, so achingly hurt to think that Alice would do this to them.  To _him._ He just needs a second to deal with all of that before anyone else has a chance to get mad, too.

He needs a second to deal with a lot of things.

“So, I, uh, know there’s a shitton of other important stuff to talk about, but I think we should save it for the morning,” he says, blunt as that, as he goes to collect the quest book from the piano, not even really glancing at the new chapter it’s revealed.  “We could all do with some –– processing time, I think.”

“Sounds good to me,” Josh says, which –– okay, Quentin had kind of forgotten he was there already, which is probably bad.  Maybe Josh does have a point about them all ignoring him.

“Yeah, okay.  And you should get some sleep, Q.”  Eliot is across the room. It’s nearly Herculean for Quentin to make himself meet El’s eyes just then, and when he does, his whole chest goes heavy.  There’s so much concern in Eliot’s eyes, so much tenderness in how he’s looking at Quentin with a furrowed brow, like Quentin being tired is the biggest problem in their universe right now.  

“Yeah.  Yeah, I’m gonna do that,” says Quentin, but his feet don’t move.  He just feels like if he takes a step, he’s gonna take a step _towards_ Eliot instead of away from him.  

Quentin would very much like to believe he is in command of his own body, but it’s frankly just not true.  Better to not move at all, and be safe.

He wants desperately to kiss Eliot goodnight.  He would, if they were alone. But even though Margo _knows,_ now, he can’t even fathom the idea of kissing El in front of her.  Not out of the context of their drunken threesome, something where they were all at least on even footing.  Now, Quentin knows that if he shows the tiniest bit of affection to El, it’s going to reveal so, so much of himself.  Plus, Josh is there too, and Quentin doesn’t _exactly_ care about keeping anything a secret from Josh, but he’s also pretty sure that the second Josh knows, the whole entire world will know.  And there’s nothing, actually, to know, except that Quentin is pathetic and in love with his best friend and is taking whatever he can get until it all inevitably blows up in his face.

Yeah, he doesn’t need more people knowing that about him.

So why can’t he look away from Eliot’s eyes right now?  Why can’t he stop searching his expression, longing to reach out to him, aching for one more soft, warm kiss?

“Jesus fuck, you’re going to bed, not _war,”_ Margo finally says, making Quentin’s cheeks flush red as he immediately diverts his gaze.  “Quentin, get some fucking sleep, you look like you’re gonna pass out.  Eliot, me and you are drinking a bottle of wine right now, so go pick a good one.”

To avoid looking at either her or Eliot, Quentin looks at Josh, instead.  “I’ll, uh, show you a free room you can crash in,” he says, and flees up the stairs.

After depositing Josh in one of the rooms no longer occupied by the non-existent students of the no-longer-running Brakebills university, Quentin is faced with a familiar dilemma.  He stands in the hallway between his and Eliot’s rooms, and wonders where to go.

He just really, really wants to be horizontal on a surface, honestly.  His eyelids are so heavy that they’re tingling, and his head is all fogged up with horrible things, which sleeping would allow him to not fucking deal with.  The thing is, though: he’s slept in Eliot’s room every night since they’ve been back on earth. They’ve fucked every night, too, of course, but always fallen asleep together afterwards.

Quentin likes Eliot’s room.  Eliot’s room has scented candles and a king sized bed.  Eliot’s room has incredibly soft pillows. Eliot’s room has, well, _Eliot,_ who is Quentin’s best sleep aid these days.

But not tonight, because tonight El is still downstairs with Margo, and Quentin is going to bed alone for longer than he’d care to think about.  

A huge amount of him wants to still go into Eliot’s room.  If this were a couple days ago, he wouldn’t even hesitate, would just go in and take off his clothes and bundle himself up in Eliot’s duvet like a burrito and fall fast asleep and trust that whenever Eliot came to bed, he’d be happy to find Q there.  

But now that Margo knows, things just feel so different.  It’s harder to push the lines of what they are, Quentin realises, as he lets out one deep sigh and turns away from Eliot’s door, heading to his own room instead.

Before, there was nobody but him and Eliot to know what they were doing with their relationship, so as long as Eliot never seemed to mind Quentin nudging things unjustifiably far towards the actions of someone who was madly in love, rather than someone just casually fucking a friend, it was all okay.  But for all Quentin knows, Margo will come back to Eliot’s room tonight after they’ve been drinking together; the two of them like to cuddle. What will she think if she walks in to find Quentin asleep in Eliot’s bed?  She knows he has a perfectly good room down the hall; she’ll know those aren’t the actions of somebody  _just hooking up._ He thinks he can handle Margo knowing about the sex so long as she doesn't know about the _extras_ of it all.

It’s easy for all of this to feel so normal when he and El are just doing it, because Eliot is naturally physically affectionate and treats his favourite friends with a nearly romantic sort of devotion anyway, plus he’s very casual about sex.  It’s Quentin who’s blurring those lines in his head, letting himself take advantage of Eliot’s nature. Letting himself act like this is something _more._

It’s all different now that Margo knows.  He’s going to have to re-draw the lines in his head, going to have to stick closer to the definition of friends with benefits, he thinks.  If he doesn’t, he knows that she’ll catch onto him in a heartbeat.

And if Margo knows he’s in love, she’ll tell Eliot, and then Eliot will stop fucking him, and everything will be awkward forever, and Quentin will lose his best friend.

No, he thinks, far better to just make sure everything’s as casual as it can possibly be.  He returns to his own room, sparse as it is, and lays down on the bed he doesn’t like, and stares at his ratty-edged  _Fillory and Further_ poster on the far wall until he falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

Every part of Eliot is screaming at him to just follow Quentin up to bed, repay the blowjob he never returned this morning and then tuck up under the covers with his boy and snuggle this whole long day away.  But, unfortunately, he can’t do that.

He isn’t going to be able to avoid this conversation with Margo forever.

So: he cracks open a good bottle of wine, and drinks one glass almost immediately, and they settle down on one of the back couches in the cottage together, his spare arm slung familiarly around her shoulders, and waits.

“Okay,” she says, all business, all _knowing_ as she looks at him dead-on.  “You and Q started fucking around a year ago, when it was just the two of you trapped in some sort of pastoral hellscape with no Grindr.”

“That’s about the long and short of it, though I was never tacky enough to be on _Grindr.”_

“Yes, you were.  Anyway. You seduced him?”

“He kissed me first,” El admits.  Margo looks a little impressed.

“Damn.  I thought he was more repressed than that.  Maybe I don’t remember as much of our little menage a trois as I thought I did.”

Eliot’s pretty sure Margo doesn’t remember the part where Quentin sucked his dick like he was dying for it, so.  Yeah.

“Okay, so little Q with the big over-attachment issues has been fucking you, and only you, for a year of his life.  Which is definitely the longest relationship he’s ever had. And you’ve been fucking him, and _only_ him, for the exact same amount of time, which is the longest relationship of your life, obviously exclusing me because I transcend labels.”

“It hasn’t been _only_ him.  There were a few others.”  Eliot says it rather petulantly, and doesn’t add that it was only a couple of others, and they were all way back in the beginning of the arrangement, the early Fillory days, and Quentin had encouraged him both times, and it had left such a sour taste in Eliot’s mouth afterwards that he’d sort of privately decided to be almost-monogamous without telling anyone.

“Right.  Sure there have.  I notice you didn’t address the _relationship_ part.”

“It’s not like that,” Eliot tries to justify, though he knows he’s not quite meeting Margo’s eyes as he does.  “Q’s my best friend, and sometimes there’s some extras, like –– like getting guac on the side, but friendship is still the main burrito.  It’s like me and you. Platonic true love, with a bit of queer sex thrown in when it’s fun.”

Margo looks like she’s on the brink of a migraine.  “It is _not_ the same, and you know it.  We’ve had threesomes and orgies and made out for fun when we’re high, but we never, like, tenderly exchanged one-on-one oral in our morning shower.  You’ve certainly never looked at me like your heart’s gonna fall out of your fucking chest when I do something that’s not even that cute. You _love_ him.”

Eliot’s heart stops.  “I do not _love_ him.”

“You so fucking do, Eliot.  It’s written all over your face.”

Margo knows him so, so well.  It should be impossible. As a child, growing up in a place where he was treated more like an alien, Eliot felt utterly unknowable.  He still often does, to most of the people he meets, the people who just get to see vests and cocktails, or –– or the veneer of a High King on a throne who can declare war with a flick of his wrist.  The whole heart and soul of him is so very far beneath those surfaces. But somehow, Margo knows it. Somehow, also, Quentin does, too.

How lucky is Eliot, a little unknowable kid from a nowhere town with a nothing life who grew up to find not just one, but _two_ people who can connect with him right down to his soul?

How lucky, and also how miserably unlucky, because it means he can’t ever get away with hiding shit like this anymore.

“Why don’t we ever talk about _your_ love life,” he objects weakly, sinking down into the couch cushions and draining his wine glass.  It doesn’t seem to help, and he’s making the tiniest effort not to drink quite so much to excess, these days, so he doesn’t immediately go for a refill.  He doesn’t want to be entirely drunk when he crawls into bed with Q later.

“Because I’m not pathetic, unlike you, and I don’t get attached to no man.  Next question.”

Eliot thinks about it for really not that long.  There’s no point hiding it, though, is there? Not from Margo.

He’s so tired of hiding it from everyone else.  If Bambi’s going to figure it out anyway, he might as well just tell her.

“Okay, so I have –– feelings.   _Stray_ feelings, which need to be put back in their boxes as soon as I get a free minute to think about it.”

“I knew it!” Margo looks utterly triumphant.  “El, you are so fucking dumb. I love compartmentalising as much as the next fucked up magician, don’t get me wrong, but you can’t box shit like _this_ away.  You need to tell him.”

“Oh, no fucking _way,”_ Eliot says.  He’s torn halfway between the ideas of laughing and bursting into tears at the mere thought, so compromises by stealing Margo’s glass and drinking the rest of her wine in one gulp.  “I gave you a special best-soul-friend pass right then, and told you I’ve _got_ feelings.  But that’s as far as this goes.  You got it, Bambi? What me and Q have, right now, is –– it’s working.  But he has made it _abundantly_ clear that he wants nothing more.  So it stays casual, and it stays secret, or I don’t get to have him at all.  I’m not going to do anything to mess that up.”

It is perhaps the strongest Eliot has felt on a subject in a very, very long time.  Margo regards him for longer than he’s really comfortable with, her lips pressed together harshly.

“Well, I think you’re both absolute fucking idiots,” she decides.

Eliot leans forwards and presses a grateful kiss to her forehead.  He knows that’s her way of saying that she’ll drop the subject, for now.

At least, she'll drop the subject of _feelings_ : the next thing Margo does, though, is pull away and grin at him, rather wicked.  "So, you stillhaven't told me what he's like in bed.  When not entirely drunk and emotion-high and being mildly terrified by his own bi awakening, at least, because I don't think that threesome was the _best_ way of judging."

Eliot thinks about it for a moment.  He doesn't want to share too many details, because Quentin would be embarrassed by Margo knowing that much, but he can tell her an  _overview,_ at least.  There was a time when gossiping about every single detail of their sexual encounters was Eliot and Margo's favourite hobby.  It feels wrong for her to know nothing at all.

"He is," Eliot announces eventually, with the air of somebody making a very grand proclamation, "Exactly how you'd expect him to be."

"Really into emotional sex, no clue what he actually likes, submissive except when he's being a brat, and entirely obsessed with anything he can get his mouth on?" Margo guesses.

"Mmm.  Exactly.  It's wonderful."

"Ugh, El.  You really  _are_ in love."

 

* * *

 

 

They drink for a while longer, and Eliot’s pleasantly tipsy when he finally makes his way upstairs.  He kisses Margo goodnight outside her bedroom door like a good gentleman, and then heads to his own room, already loosening his tie and thinking about what he’ll do with the lovely boy inside if Quentin is still awake, or how he’ll convince Q to stop hogging the covers if he’s asleep already.

Except.  Then, Eliot actually steps into his room.

The space is dark and still, undisturbed since the morning.

Oh.  Quentin’s not in here.

His heart does a dozen complicated things in his chest, and finally just settles with an: _oh._ Right.  That’s fine.  That makes sense.

It’s not like Quentin’s the most tactile one between the two of them.  He probably doesn’t crave the sleepy cuddles they exchange every night the same way Eliot does.  And this is the first time they’ve gone to bed separately for quite some time; it makes perfect sense that Quentin would go to his own room.  If Eliot’s not there with the promise of sex, what does his room have to offer? Q’s probably grateful to sleep in his own bed for once.

Eliot’s stomach feels queasy and hollow.  He probably should have eaten something before drinking all that wine.

It’s fine, though.  It’s absolute fine. If anything, this is perfect; a perfect reinforcement of what he just told Margo.  He and Quentin have a practical sexual arrangement, but nothing more outside the bounds of friendship. They’re naturally intimate, because that’s how Eliot is with his closest friends, but that’s not automatically romantic.  It’s the same as if Margo had a dick, and was regularly sleeping with him. And had the perfect personality to endear him and challenge him to be a better man and simultaneously amuse him and frustrate him and encourage him at every turn ––

Eliot takes off his clothes and crawls into bed without much thought.  He takes the same side he always does, because it’s a deeply ingrained habit once you’ve shared with someone for the better part of a year, but he can’t really get comfortable in the cavernous space.

The pillow on the other side of the bed smells like Quentin’s hair, his boring supermarket shampoo and a little waft of cigarette smoke.

Just this once, Eliot decides, he’ll sleep on that side instead.  He burrows his face into the pillow, and convinces himself that everything is absolutely, definitely fine.  This is what they agreed on.

This is what Quentin _wants_.  It's good for Eliot to remind himself, once in a while: Quentin isn't nearly so attached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as allllways, let me know if there's anything you wanna see in the remaining chapters, and leave a comment if u liked it! i'm an entirely validation-fed gremlin, that's maia facts #1
> 
> my magicians tumblr is [here](http://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com) ❤️


	6. what you want and what you feel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one took a lil longer to get out! i was working on my fake dating au for queliot week (which u can find [here](https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/45794878) if u wanna check it out), and also, like. this is a 20k chapter. so. took me a lil fuckin longer (i still have NO IDEA how it got this LONG send help)
> 
> a couple of minor warnings for this chapter: eliot has a few thoughts which alllmost border on biphobic because of his own insecurities. he's very self-aware about it, so i just want to let y'all know in advance that i'm exploring that, but it's by no means extreme in this fic
> 
> also, there's a sort-of-sex-scene in here which eliot is very reluctant about at the start. without spoiling the scene itself, i just wanna assure y'all nobody does anything they don't wanna do, and the scene resolves in a way which shouldn't make anyone uncomfortable, so pls don't worry when u start it !

Whatever you want  
be sure that is what you want;  
Whatever you feel  
be sure that is what you feel.

_––T.S. Eliot_

 

* * *

Quentin still remembers the moment he realised he was in love with Eliot.

In hindsight, it should have been more obvious, but Eliot is Eliot and Quentin’s mind was so used to thinking _Eliot’s my best friend, of course I love him,_ that he didn’t realise when the fond feeling turned into more of a warm-chest, fluttery-stomach, fizzy-when-he-laughs feeling; when he tipped from love to _in love_.  When he eventually noticed, it was with a hot flash of stupidity which made him also instantly aware that he should have known far earlier.

It happened about ten months after they started hooking up, on, by all accounts, a pretty normal day.  It was a while after their trysts had gone from _winding each other up a couple times a week and fucking and then immediately going back to our own beds and not talking about it_ to, like, _sleeping in the same bed most nights even if we’re not gonna fuck and cuddling every chance we get and sometimes waking up with lazy morning blowjobs but still definitely not talking about it_.  So, a confusing time anyway.  And then one day, Quentin had been getting frustrated at the mosaic, and, far more rare, Eliot had been frustrated too.

Eliot didn’t tend to get frustrated over the futility of their task.  Not easily, at least, or not in a way he couldn’t chase away with alcohol.  It was part of that charming passivity he always displayed; the _this might as well happen_ attitude to everything which befell him, misfortunate or not.  To some it might have seemed like hopeless nihilism and a lack of care for his own life, but there was a more enduring undercurrent to it.  Eliot, Quentin has always thought, is a survivor, is used to surviving above all else, and he seems able to weather pretty much any madness so long as he has some wine and most of his limbs.  Quentin wishes he could be like that.

That day, though, he wasn’t wishing that.  That day, he was sort of wishing Eliot would crawl into a hole and die, with the amount they’d been bickering.  It had ended with Eliot childishly messing up Quentin’s new pattern before he could finish it, Quentin throwing the pot of coloured chalk off onto the ground, and Eliot moaning “I truly can’t deal with your melancholic bullshit right now,” and going off to drink his wine in the woods.

Quentin sulkily collected the chalk he’d thrown, because, well, he did need them, but he waited until Eliot was definitely out of sight to do it.  Then he stomped around a bit until it got dark, had a weird sweet potato sandwich for dinner, and didn’t make anything for El. He quickly got into his bed when he heard Eliot’s footsteps returning outside; he didn’t wanna talk.  They could make up in the morning, if they weren’t both still pissed by then. They’d certainly had longer spats than this in the time they’d been there, so there were no guarantees.

Eliot entered the dark hut and started taking off his clothes; Quentin didn’t look, but could tell from the rustling noises he was so familiar with by now.   _He’s probably been drinking all day and he’s not even having dinner_ , Quentin noted unhappily to himself, but his annoyance overpowered his worry so he didn’t say anything.  Until, that was —

There was a creaking noise, and Quentin realised that Eliot was getting into the other bed, across the room.

It came as a shock, though he couldn’t have explained why.  Two seconds ago the last thing he’d wanted was Eliot close to him in any sort of way.  He’d gotten so used to sharing the bed, though; to the weight and smell of Eliot, the sounds of his breath against Quentin’s ear –– and Quentin was, coincidentally, sleeping better than he ever had in his perpetually insomniac life.

And then he just thought it, all of a sudden, like it was a fact he’d always known but had sort of misplaced in his mind until then: I’m mad at Eliot but I still want him close, I don’t want to sleep without him — oh.

_I’m in love with him._

He didn’t remotely have the space to unpack the knowledge right then, though, so he didn’t.  He repeated it several times in his mind, and then put it away to deal with in the morning, because, like, seriously, what the fuck was he supposed to _do_ with that?

All he could focus on right then was —

“Come here.”  His voice was soft but sounded shattering in the silence of the hut.  He hadn’t even meant to say it, not really, and weakly a moment later added, “it’s cold,” like that justified anything at all.

For a few moments, a frozen sort of stillness.  Quentin could imagine the look on Eliot’s face without needing to see it.

Then, the rustle of somebody getting back out of bed.  Footsteps across the short distance between them, and a weight pressing down onto Quentin’s lumpy mattress, the heat of another body joining him beneath the patchwork quilt.  Eliot was naked, but it didn’t feel sexual.

Neither of them said anything: they were still pissed off, and tired, and Eliot smelled strongly of wine so he was probably gonna pass out before Quentin did.  

Still, Quentin rolled close in the small bed and put his head grouchily on Eliot’s shoulder.   _I’m in love with him_ , he reminded himself, nearly hysterical, as Eliot abruptly started snoring.  It was a ridiculous fact, but Quentin couldn’t un-know it now.

 

* * *

 

The question after all that, was, of course, whether he should tell Eliot.  

Quentin wasn’t totally stupid, no matter what his friends sometimes said.  He knew El was fond of him; had always flirted with him; found him appealing in at least the way someone like Eliot would enjoy a slightly repressed, inexperienced, previously-thought-to-be-straight boy, something he could gleefully corrupt.  And they’d been friends for quite some time. Eliot had confessed things to Quentin they barely anyone else in the world knew about him. Quentin knew Eliot _loved_ him.

He just didn’t think it was an _in love_ sort of love.  Or, even if it was, that that necessarily meant Eliot would want the things Quentin did.  Eliot, who’d never shown much interest in monogamy or anything beyond a three-night-stand, apart from that short interlude with Mike which, if it had been Eliot’s experiment with having a boyfriend, had certainly ended so badly that he’d seemed a thousand times less amenable to commitment afterwards.  

So, in Quentin’s mind that meant there was no point to telling Eliot he was in love with him, and even that it was likely to just scare Eliot off, so he was better off _not_ .  The only thing really on the other side of the coin was: Quentin wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions.  It wasn’t really something he _did._ When Quentin felt something, he let people know about it, all the time.

It still seemed like a terrible idea to confess to Eliot, though, no matter how much Q thought love must have been pouring off him in waves every time they so much as made eye contact, and had no idea how Eliot hadn’t yet noticed.

What he needed, he had then decided, was a sign.  Should he be truthful, or should he protect their friendship, and the delicate situation between them?

And then, a few days later, a travelling theatre troupe came past the mosaic on the way to the nearest town.  They had stopped to refresh at the wide river that ran nearby, and Quentin and Eliot, both always at least _mildly_ desperate for other company, no matter how much they liked each other, had gone to chat to them.  They ended up sprawled out beside the river with a dozen actors, sharing a picnic for the afternoon.

Mostly, Quentin liked hearing tales of all the places they’d taken their show to before, like an auditory map of all the places he’d never had the chance to explore in Fillory himself.  Some of the place names he recognised from the books, which sent a boyish jolt of joy through him each time, and others were totally new; he was keeping a list in his mind to add to his own version of a Fillory map at some point, but also just as places he kind of wanted to visit.

It was beginning to get to the point where he and Eliot were taking time off from the mosaic once in a while –– where they were beginning to realise they’d have to _live here_ rather than just _survive here_ and were thus allowed to have a bit of fun once in a blue moon –– so maybe, Q thought, the two of them could take a little trip to somewhere further than the local village, experience a bit of variety sometime.

It was perhaps a total pipedream, but a nice one to entertain the possibility of in his own head, at least.

Desperate for details about the other nearby towns, Quentin directed a long spiel of questions over his glass of mead to one of the actresses, who was about their age and seemed happy enough to talk to him while she ate her way through several slices of bread with chutney.  She actually seemed happy enough to talk to him even when she was finished doing that, but it was a nice sunny afternoon by the river and everyone else was chatting in their own little groups, dotted around the place, so Quentin didn’t think much of it.

At least, not until she excused herself to go get more wine, and Eliot was suddenly at Quentin’s side, though Q could have sworn he was on the other side of the river only a few moments ago.

“If you want to fuck her, just go for it,” Eliot said, his tone completely unaffected, gaze focused on the picnic blanket as he searched for something amongst the food.

The idea honestly hadn’t even crossed Quentin’s mind.  Something in his stomach turned sour.

“I don’t,” he said, too-quick, emphatically.  And then the thought about the guy with the biceps half-dressed in a mermaid costume who Eliot had been laughing with on the other side of the river, and thought, oh: maybe he’s saying because _he_ wants to.  So, Quentin said too, a test: “If you want to fuck _him_ , um, you should do it, though.”

Eliot met his gaze for a long moment, searching for something he apparently either found or did not find.  Then he shrugged, smiled lightly, and duffed Quentin’s jawline with one knuckle.

Eliot went off with the guy for several hours.  Quentin went back to the mosaic, with his stomach turning and his heart squeezing tight in his chest like it was trying to compact itself down into the smallest possible shape, and worked on a new pattern alone until Eliot came back, messy haired and relaxed.

That, Quentin figured, was his answer.  Eliot cared for him, liked fucking him well enough, but he didn’t feel the same way Quentin felt, didn’t want the same things Quentin wanted.  There was no point, then, in Quentin telling Eliot he was in love with him.

Instead, he kept the knowledge safe inside himself, where it never lost its shine.  Where it couldn’t be hurt the way it could have been if he’d let it out into the world, and exposed it to the crippling pain of _real life_.

 

* * *

 

Now, every time Quentin finds himself tempted to let his feelings get the best of him and admit something out loud, he remembers that day.  Remembers that as much as he loves Eliot, and as much as he knows Eliot loves him, they’re two different sorts of love; they want different things out of _life,_ and out of this thing they’re doing together.  It wouldn’t even be fair to ask beautiful, passionate, unconventional Eliot to tie himself to being something as dull as _Quentin’s boyfriend._

So he doesn’t.  He takes what he can get of Eliot, here and now, and doesn’t think about more _._  Tells himself he doesn’t even really need more.  He’s fine going on like this, if it’s the most he can have.

And it’s not like he doesn’t have other things to be getting on with, anyway.  Like, a whole fucking quest. Really, he doesn’t need the distraction of a boyfriend either.

He is telling all this to himself so fervently in his head several days later in the kitchen of the Physical Kids Cottage, as he washes out a cereal bowl for far longer than it needs, that he suddenly becomes terrified he’s started saying it aloud when he catches Margo staring at him from the table.  Her gaze is so intense, so evaluating above the rim of her coffee –– healthily spiked with rum, because she’s Margo –– that he sinks right into _she knows everything you’ve ever done and ever will do,_ even after re-realising a couple moments later that his thoughts have definitely remained safely in his own head.

“Er,” says Quentin, as he sets the bowl on the drying rack and turns around, bracing his hands awkwardly behind himself against the edges of the counter.  “Can I help you, Margo?”

She seems entirely unmoved by being caught staring.

“You know, Quentin, I don’t actually know _that_ much about you before Brakebills.  What’s your dating history like?” she says, which is almost an entire spin around the globe from the sort of thing he _expected_ her to say, and makes Quentin’s head recoil.  “I mean, I know you and Alice were _going steady_ for like, a month in first year, but other than that?”

“Six weeks,” Quentin corrects her, although it’s sort of a mumble because at this point he’s pissed at Alice and doesn’t necessarily want to talk about her.   “I mean, there’s not much –– why are you asking me this?”

Margo smiles with all her teeth, like a shark.

“We’re just bonding,” she says, and pats the chair beside her at the kitchen table.  “Dating history, full names and exact days they began and ended, go.”

Quentin rolls his eyes, even as he grabs his mug of coffee and comes to sit at the table with her anyway.

“Margo, I’m not gonna tell you that.  Mostly because I have _no_ idea what the exact days of my past relationships were.  I’m not a psychopath.”

“Well, now you’re not even _trying,”_ she complains.  She takes a mouthful of coffee and then, looking at him like he’s somehow wearing down her patience even though she’s barely asked him anything yet, continues, “Just give me the basic fucking brushstrokes, then.”

It seems like she’s not going to drop the subject, so Quentin sighs, wracking his brain for the more forgotten parts of his life –– honestly, anything pre-Brakebills seems like a blur at this point –– while he takes his first few sips of today’s caffeine.

“Okay, I had my first girlfriend for like, two months in high school, but we mostly just passed notes in class and studied in the library together, so it wasn’t all that thrilling.  Kind of had a thing with a girl from my medieval lit class in sophomore year of college. My longest was like, five months with a girl I met in group therapy even though you’re not supposed to date other people from group therapy, but, uh, yeah.  And then, like you said, Alice. That’s my super exciting life.”

Margo narrows her eye at him.

“You’re skipping people,” she decides, apropos of nothing Quentin can identify.

“I’m _really_ not.”  Does she think he was some kind of secret Lothario?  Is his pathetically sparse dating experience not exactly on par with who he is as a person?

“I thought you fucked Emily Greenstreet?   _And_ that librarian looking chick for the bank heist.”

“Well, that was _sex._ You asked me about my dating life, not _sex.”_

The way he says this maybe implies he’s had a huge amount more sex if you remove it from the context of relationships.  Excluding the past year with Eliot, this is _not_ true.  Quentin is equal parts stressed out by and incredibly, incredibly into sex, but finding people who want to engage in it with him has never been his strong suit.  Probably because he hardly left his room from the ages of fifteen to twenty three. There have ostensibly only been a handful more girls if he counts one-time things.

But he doesn’t fancy telling Margo any of that at this particular moment.

“Okay, fuck, read between the lines, Coldwater!  This is supposed to be a _comprehensive_ list.  You’re already being stingy on the details.  Come on, baby boy, tell me about all your nervous little sexy encounters.”

Margo has definitely referred to him as _baby_ before but that was before Eliot started doing it a huge amount of the time, and now it just sets a weird churn in his stomach.

“Margo.  Seriously, like, no thanks?  Let’s talk about something else.”  Let her draw whatever conclusions she wants, that he’s had a huge amount of sex or none of it at all –– he’s _entirely_ too awkward to talk about that, and he’d be blushing and stumbling his way through it the whole time, and she doesn’t even have a reason to know.  It was different with Eliot, the only person who really knows the full list of Quentin’s history, because they both had to go through things with a lot of honesty when they started fucking in Fillory, a land without profilactics.  If Margo’s not going near his dick, it’s not remotely worth braving his own awkwardness to talk about his sex life with her.

She seems to realise he’s set on this, although she’s not all that pleased about it, but drops that particular line of questioning.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t like her change of tracks much better.

“Fine, screw that, but you’re leaving people out of your dating history, too,” she says.  “For example, a certain High King whose bedroom I saw you roll out of at about five this morning with no shirt on and a chest _covered_ in hickeys?”

Quentin’s stomach sinks, and his throat suddenly feels closed-up and cold.

“Oh,” he says gummily.  Of course, now that Margo knows about them, she’s making an effort to spy.  Of course this conversation is about Eliot. How dumb is he that he didn’t realise that earlier?  “Me and El aren’t dating, Margo, not even close. It’s completely casual. It doesn’t count.”

There.  He finally has a reason to say all the things he’s been repeating in his head for weeks.  They sound far worse to him aloud than they ever did before, and leave an ashy taste in his mouth.

Margo looks at him for a very long moment.  Her expression is inscrutable.

“You’re ridiculous,” she eventually says.

“I think _you_ are going stir crazy being away from the castle,” Quentin accuses, partly because it’s true –– everyone’s seen her flitting around meddling in everything that could possibly be meddled in at the cottage the last few days, with increasingly short temper –– and partly to get her off his back.  “Why don’t you go do something else today? Or at least get your mind off my love life. Seriously, it’s –– it’s not even worth thinking about. I certainly don’t think about it.”

Quentin Coldwater is a big, fat liar.  But at least he’s self aware.

Margo gives him a look, but mercifully doesn’t decide to push further.  Even she knows when to pull back _sometimes._

“Ugh, fine, we’ll revisit this when you’re less fuckin’ skittish.”  And then, taking a gulp of her coffee, she abruptly changes the subject once more by asking: “So, you’re bi?”

Quentin blinks at her.

“Uh.”  He’s genuinely, actually, never really sat down and _thought_ about that.  He’s had bigger things on his mind this year, understandably.  It’s almost startling to be asked something so normal, about his identity rather than god-magic or apocalypses or the fate of the world.  “I guess? I mean, I haven’t thought about it all that much. I never exactly called myself _straight,_ but I didn’t really, like.   _Know_.  It just never really came up, before Eliot.  I sort of, uh, tend to fixate? So I just loved Julia until I loved Alice and everything else was just background noise, until –– yeah, so I’m still kind of sorting it out.”

That may be revealing too much of himself, or too much of him-and-Eliot at least, but he doesn’t think it will surprise anyone who knows him to find out that Quentin has always historically fallen in love with one single person at a time, even when they didn’t want him at all, and subsequently failed to notice anything going on around him or even in his own mind.

Margo snorts through her nose, though not unkindly.  

“That tracks,” she agrees, smiling.

Quentin knows himself well enough to be able to laugh at his disastrous romantic track record, so he smiles back at her, wide enough that his eyes crinkle.  It actually is really nice to talk about this with someone. Eliot’s always kind of treaded _around_ the topic of Quentin’s sexuality, like he’s afraid if he even breathes the words he’ll spook Quentin back into straighthood.  While Quentin understands where El’s coming from, and while he’s never felt much compulsion to bring it up himself because it’s such a non-issue in his mind, it’s surprisingly nice to actually talk some of this out.

“Actually, yes,” he decides suddenly, with a swell of calm in his chest.  He feels his posture straighten the tiniest bit, like he’s suddenly standing on more solid ground than he was a moment ago.  “You know what, I am. Bi. For sure.”

Margo smiles at him.  Quentin likes her savage Queen smiles, but he likes these even more: the _real,_ kind-eyed smiles she only usually gives Eliot.  They make her look young, like the soul of a hopeful child is peeking out from inside her hard shell, and Quentin feels special every time one is gifted to him.

“Well, cheers to that,” she says, and clinks her mug of coffee against his.  Quentin clinks back, and grins back, and tucks his hair behind his ears while they go back to their drinks in silence and just thinks: huh.  Bi. That’s good to know.

 

* * *

 

Fen comes back to the house not much later in a strange mood, upset in her eyes, and Margo announces about three minutes later that she’s decided to take Fen into the city for the day.  She doesn’t invite any of the rest of them, adamantly, which feels to Quentin a bit like an admonishment for their conversation in the kitchen earlier when he suggested she needed to occupy her time today, but which nobody else seems to mind.

In theory, this should leave Quentin with an entire cottage full of people, but Kady is nowhere to be found, and Penny is –– well, invisible, but presumably following Kady wherever she is, and Alice is still AWOL as well, and Fen had said Julia was off researching something for the fairies.  So. With Margo gone, the size of the house actually shrinks to just Quentin-and-Eliot.

Which is great.  Should be great? Is fine, at least.  Quentin _wants_ to be around Eliot all the time, of course he does.

That’s sort of the problem, though.  He wants it too much. Wants so much more than Eliot does, so much more that it’s –– becoming a problem.  Like, Quentin has known he’s in love for a while now, but he was still always _just_ managing to hold some part of it back.  Still mitigating his own expectations. Still scrubbing back his own feelings, like scrubbing a damp cloth on moldy walls: you still know it’s growing there under the surface, but you can ignore it a while longer.

But lately, he’s felt himself approaching a precipice that will be impossible to pull back from.  Quentin can’t let himself reach it. He knows if he does, he’s going to end up destroyed when Eliot gets bored of him and moves on to somebody more interesting.  Finds someone to _settle down_ with, even.

The only way he can think of to pull back his emotions from the brink, though, is to just.  Limit his time with Eliot. If he’s not so constantly staring at Eliot’s gorgeous face, breathing in his scent and feeling the heat of his body each time they casually touch, laughing at Eliot’s smart quips every two seconds –– well, if he’s not doing all _that_ every second of the day, surely he’ll stop being so overwhelmed.  Right?

Unfortunately, there’s no way he can tell Eliot about this plan without revealing all the problems to begin with, so Eliot isn’t _helping._

“Hmm, well, all the girls are out doing things,” Eliot observes, as soon as the door closes behind Margo and Fen.  He stretches his long arms above his head for a moment, then settles comfortably into his own posture and looks at Quentin with one hip cocked.  “Whatever shall we do to entertain ourselves in their absence?”

 _Make an excuse,_ Quentin tells himself, but can’t quite bring himself to, so he just clutches the quest book to his chest and says, “Is your mind _always_ in the gutter?”

“Oh, definitely.  If you haven’t realised that by now I don’t know if there’s any hope for you, Quentin.”  Eliot puts his chin up in the way he does when he’s exaggerating but only _slightly,_ honestly; Quentin rolls his eyes, even though he’s ridiculously charmed by the performance.  A moment later, Eliot breaks out of it, laughing and patting Quentin’s arm. “No, really though, I was thinking something more PG.  Loathe as I am to admit it, you actually wore me out last night. Hey, where did you disappear to, by the way? I woke up for water after a couple hours and you’d gone.”

Eliot’s voice is entirely casual, unaffected by the question.  Quentin glances at him for just a moment and thinks he sees an odd emotion behind Eliot’s eyes, but –– no, it’s gone in a second, he’s just projecting.  He swallows, his throat suddenly feeling a little dry.

“Oh, uh, I just couldn’t sleep.  I didn’t wanna wake you with the light so I went back to my room to read for a while.”

It’s really barely a lie.  He _couldn’t_ sleep, after he and Eliot finished fucking last night, the filthy sort of fucking that made them both lose their minds until they were just _bodies bodies bodies_ and didn’t notice whole hours passing.  He’s still sore this morning, and when he peeked in the mirror before showering this morning there were more dark hickeys on his body than he could count; he’s covered them up with a hoodie, but he still _knows_ they’re there.  Fuck, but it was so good.  So good, and yet when they collapsed into Eliot’s bed afterwards, Quentin’s aching and exhausted body still wouldn’t pass out.

He just kept thinking: distance.  And even though it felt as sharp and unnatural as swallowing broken glass, he’d forced himself to crawl out of the bed and back to his own room to finally sleep.

Sleeping without Eliot is Quentin’s least favourite thing these days, but that’s why he thinks it’s good that he does it.  As much as possible. He’s clearly gotten far, _far_ too used to sleeping with El, but that’s not something he should be taking for granted.  He needs to train his brain out of expecting it, so he’ll be able to just _survive_ whenever things end and he suddenly has to learn how to inhabit his own space again.  Better to ease himself into it.

“Aww, poor baby,” says Eliot lightly, like he would any other day Quentin complained about insomnia, oblivious to Quentin’s internal strife.  He reaches out to pet Quentin’s hair, and Quentin is achingly caught between leaning into it like he wants to or pulling out of grasp like he knows he should; he stays shock-still instead, hating himself.  “Read anything good, at least?”

“Do you consider the quest book a scintillating read?”

Eliot wrinkles his nose.  “Not particularly, no.” Then again, Eliot doesn’t really like books in general, so Quentin probably shouldn’t judge by his barometer.  “How’s the new chapter going?”

Quentin’s arms tighten around the book where he’s still holding it as his chest, and he shrugs, a pathetic sort of motion which makes its way through one side of his body at a time.

“I haven’t actually finished it yet.  It’s sort of dense to get through. I guess making up for the fact that the last chapter was literally just two bars of music, they thought _next time we need to drown them in lore for days before revealing a single thing, really make them work for it.”_

“Mmm, sounds exactly like the bullshit I’d expect from something from Fillory.  Do you need any help?” Eliot offers.

Which is.  Honestly, a really nice offer.  And Eliot is one of the smartest people Quentin knows, and probably _would_ have a lot of insight into the quest if he tried.  Much as Eliot is loathe to put effort into anything he encounters on a daily (or life-ly) basis, when he does try, it’s always amazing.  He came up with some of the most beautiful and profound patterns they tried at the mosaic, after all, at the same time as completing the herculean task of keeping Quentin’s mental state above water.

But, still.  “No, it’s okay.  I think I’m just gonna finish the chapter today and see what I can figure out.”

Right now, this quest sort of feels like the only thing he’s got control over in his life.  The only thing he’s doing that’s _good._ He might be pining so hard his whole body aches for a boy who’s never spent a second imagining him as more than a friend, but at least if he can solve this quest himself, he’ll have done something useful.  And maybe focusing on getting magic back will help him stop feeling miserable about other things he can’t have.

Maybe.  Just maybe.

“Well, let me know if you change your mind,” Eliot says, accepting the answer easily.  “Personally, I’m going to have a bubblebath and catch up on my poor neglected skincare routines, since we’ve apparently got time to kill on earth again.  Isn’t it lovely being back here?”

He presses his hand into Quentin’s hair for just a moment, an affectionate gesture that Quentin has to close his eyes against, lest he ascribe it far more meaning than Eliot intended.  Then Eliot heads up the stairs, and Quentin, miserable but at least true to his resolve, heads off alone with his book.

 

* * *

 

Eliot doesn’t know how to admit it, but he’s a little worried about Quentin.  

It may just be the stress of the quest getting to him, Eliot decides, as he rolls the topic around his mind at length during his bath.  As he takes a vigorous loofah to one elbow, he remembers the pinch of Quentin’s eyebrows when he was talking about this new chapter, and thinks that’s the most likely explanation.

For a couple of days, admittedly, Eliot had been terrified Quentin was having second thoughts about their whole arrangement.  Maybe coming back to Brakebills and seeing Alice again had reminded him of just how much he’d been, like, last-man-on-earth settling with Eliot.  But after the frankly ridiculous sex they had the night before, Eliot’s no longer _quite_ so worried about that.  He still knows Quentin is just using their sex to distract himself rather than feeling anything more, but at least it’s a distraction he seems to want to continue.

Eliot maybe gives in and plays through a few too many memories of the previous night as he enjoys his bubblebath.  His fingers have gone all pruney by the time he remembers where he is and gets out.

Still, worrying about Quentin’s general stress levels and lack of self-care is something more manageable for Eliot than worrying Quentin suddenly hates him, and as he vigorously moisturises every inch of his body, he takes on the task with great dedication.  If Quentin is working himself ragged over the quest, Eliot is just going to have to take better care of him.

It’s what he did for much of their time at the mosaic, and, frankly, one of the most rewarding jobs Eliot has ever had.  One of the _only_ jobs he’s ever taken up willingly.  It’s worth any amount of effort just to see Quentin smiling wider sometimes when Eliot’s trying to make him happy, or watch the bags beneath his eyes fade a little when Eliot manages to get him sleeping on time for several nights in a row.

Since Eliot doesn’t have a kingdom to be looking after right now, he has plenty of time to devote to _this._

So, item one, he decides: feeding Quentin up.  On the list of things Quentin forgets to do for himself when he’s stressed, eating is probably top of the list.  And how is anybody supposed to solve a world crisis and save magic everywhere is they’re living off a mug of instant oatmeal a day?  

Eliot leaves his shirt open and his hair damp, and heads down to the kitchen to bake.  It’s not something he does all that often these days, but Eliot’s always loved to cook, and spent a great deal of time in undergrad training himself to perfection in all manner of delicacies.  Baking is a particular specialty of his, especially delicate little things he knows Quentin would have zero of the proper appreciation for.

He makes something very Quentin-friendly instead, big blueberry muffins with lots of fruity flavours and carbs.  While they’re rising in the oven, Eliot scours the Cottage’s fridge for all the vegetables he can find and chops them up fine, mixes them up with tomato to make a pasta sauce, and then cooks more spaghetti than anybody could reasonably eat in a week.

“There,” he announces a while later, as he settles a bowl down in front of Quentin with a _clatter,_ grinning at him.  Quentin startles from his position on the couch, book nearly falling out of his hands, and glances down at the pasta for a moment like he doesn’t know what it is or where it came from and is considering telephoning the emergency services.  “Now, if you’re a good boy and eat all your lunch, you can have dessert afterwards.”

Quentin rolls his eyes and reminds Eliot, “I am a twenty six year old man, Eliot, you don’t need to _bribe_ me to eat my vegetables,” but, well, he starts eating, so clearly Eliot’s tactic has worked.

Eliot sits down on the couch with his own bowl of pasta and they eat together in companionable silence.  Although they do fill a lot of their time together with talking about their lives or theorising on strange hypothetical scenarios or artfully bickering or exchanging little quips, Eliot has always loved how they can just be quiet together, too.  It feels natural in a way it never has with anyone other than Margo. He doesn’t even mind the fact that the only thing breaking the silence is the dumb slurping noises Quentin makes when he eats spaghetti.

Fuck, he really is pathetically in love.

Quentin sort of awkwardly bullies him off the couch when they’re done with the insistence Eliot will distract him from the quest book, but Eliot pops back over to him a few more times over the course of the afternoon, providing him with muffins and fruit and forcing him to drink water.  In between bugging Quentin, Eliot settles himself in the dining room and pours an early-afternoon glass of wine and does some research of his own, from the stack of books on _running a kingdom_ that he and Margo got out from the library when they were still supposed to be turning Fillory into their thesis project.

Unfortunately, there’s no helpful section titled ‘what to do when your peasants overthrow you and you have to take refuge in another world’, but he keeps looking.

He’s just about to give up and go figure out what he can force Quentin to eat for dinner when the cottage door opens, and Margo and Fen reappear.  Fen gives Eliot a somewhat watery smile before heading right up the stairs –– he almost reaches out to her, just for a moment, but then remembers the space she said she needed and also just the miserable fact that there’s _nothing he can do,_ and doesn’t.  Margo’s taken off her dazzling pink coat and immediately gone to collapse on the couch with Quentin, so Eliot brings his latest glass of wine over and joins them.  Quentin can’t complain about the distraction if Margo’s the one who started it, right?

“How was the city?” he asks Margo, winding an arm around her shoulders.

“Dirty and busy,” she says, which.  Well. It’s New York. “But I did get some _fabulous_ outfits.  And practically a whole new wardrobe for Fen.  That girl looks so good in earth clothes, Eliot; with an ass like hers, it’s a crime Fillory doesn’t have jeans.”

“Stop hitting on my wife,” Eliot warns her, although only very lightly.  He doesn’t think Margo actually has _intentions_ towards Fen, but even if she did, the concept is rather hot.

“Well, someone has to.  You’re certainly not doing it.”  

She has a point, there.  She raises her eyebrows almost challengingly at Eliot for a moment, and then turns to Q on her other side, a simperingly brighter expression on her face.  Eliot is rather insulted.

“Uh.  Hi?” says Quentin.  He is probably rightfully scared of the glint in her eyes.

“Q, since you’re a much better boy than Eliot is, I got you a present.”  Margo holds out two fingers; a thin woven bracelet is dangling between them.  She swings it back and forth in the air, closer to Quentin each time.

Quentin cracks a smile.

“Hah. I love it, Margo.  Thanks.” He holds out his wrist, the one which always has a couple spare hairbands around it too, for her to tie the bracelet on.

“Um?” says Eliot beside them, because they both seemed to have missed a rather important detail here and he thinks time is of the essence in correcting it, “Those are the bi flag colours, Margo.”

Margo looks at him like he’s exceptionally dumb.

“Yes, Eliot.  That’s sort of the entire reason I got it for Quentin.  I didn’t think he just had a massive kink for friendship bracelets, given his historic lack of talent for accessorising.”

“But Q isn’t —“ El says, slightly dizzily, the sentence stopping and starting as he realises how it sounds.  “I mean, he doesn’t identify as — just, did you actually ask him?”

Margo just.  Looks at him.

“Yes.  I did,” she says.  “Did you?”

Which.   _Oh._ No, Eliot supposes he’s never actually asked.  But Quentin has never said, either.

Oh.

Eliot doesn’t know what to do with this information.  Quentin is already distracting himself with the quest book again and Margo’s just staring him down.

He decides to pack the entire revelation away for later.

But really.  Like. Okay. That’s something entirely different to _flexible but mostly straight boy who’ll take sex with dick if it’s most convenient solely because he feels too awkward to flirt with most girls anyway,_ which was his previous working theory.  So that’s, just. Something to think about.

 

* * *

 

It’s been a weird fucking day, but Quentin suddenly ceases to be bothered when he finds himself on the very last page of the new Quest chapter.  Across the room, Margo and Eliot are drinking together and talking in low voices as they try to figure out how to help Fillory, but they both stop and look at him when he drops the book with a loud _thunk._

“I know where the sixth key is!” he exclaims, scrambling off his couch as an excited smile works onto his face.  He can’t help it; he knows things are still dire and depressing, but this is the first progress he’s made with the quest in several days, and it’s the only aspect of his life he’d currently say is going _well,_ so he thinks he’s allowed to be happy about it.  Tucking a few loose strands of hair behind his ear, he grabs the book back up and clutches it to his chest and makes his way over to the other two, stretched all elegant and expectant over their own couch, looking at him.

“Well?  Do tell,” says Eliot, with a wafty hand gesture.  Quentin plonks down beside him on the couch, maybe just a little too close, the edges of their thighs pressing together as he sinks into the cushion, but that’s okay.  He sprawls the book open across Eliot’s legs, because he can.

“It’s in the throne room at Whitespire!” Quentin announces, excitement fizzling inside him.

Eliot looks at Quentin, and then at Margo.  Margo looks at Eliot, raises her eyebrows, and looks at Quentin, and then looks between the both of them, and throws her hands in the air.

“Fucking _finally,”_ she says.  “Do we have an excuse to go take our kingdom back, now?”

 

* * *

 

Quentin’s not sure how you _take back_ a kingdom when all your people have risen up to overthrow you, but they do at least need to get back to the castle for a little while, so.  Margo seems happy, and Quentin is happy, and Eliot’s being dragged along between the both of them regardless, so it’s fine.

They send a bunny to Tick to tell him they’ll be coming back, though not explaining why; the fairy queen seems to be absent from the castle at the moment but there are still prying eyes everywhere.  They also scoop up Josh, mostly because, well, he wanders back into the cottage while they’re packing, and Quentin realises he’d _once again_ forgotten Josh was even there, and feels so bad that he invites him along.

The only thing treading on the back of his excitement is the fact that he’d wanted to find Alice and talk to her before they left for the next quest.  But he has no clue where she is or where to even begin looking for her –– and it seems increasingly likely that she’s on some sort of Library property rather than earth, anyway –– so he supposes it’ll have to wait until he gets back, even if he does feel increasingly uneasy by her absence and horrified by her actions.

He’s still trying to wrap his head around what they heard her saying through the unity spell.  Still trying to reconcile it with the Alice who _loved_ magic, who was ready to nearly kill both herself and Julia to get it back just a few weeks ago.  He wonders when he’ll stop thinking about Alice as the girl he used to love, what feels like a lifetime ago, instead of the completely different person she’s become since she came back from being a niffin.  He wonders if he’ll ever unpack how much responsibility he feels for everything she’s done since then. He wonders if he’ll ever even look at her again without it hurting.

All of that is a problem for another day, though.  Quentin, master of running away from his problems, chases all thoughts of her out of his mind, and steps into a clock instead.

There’s just one small problem.  This time, the clock doesn’t bring them to the castle.

“Wait –– is this ––” Quentin says, feeling the sway of the floorboards beneath his feet, before looking around and realising he knows this place _very_ well.  He’s faced some extremely miserable demons here, and had some fun with a sword, too.  “Are we on the Muntjac?”

“Looks like it,” Eliot agrees idly, one hand sliding reflexively onto Quentin’s shoulder as he glances around.  “Mm, I’d forgotten how nicely decorated this boat is. Do you think she does her own interior design?”

“Dudes, what the fuck is the Muntjac?” Josh asks.  Oh, yeah, Quentin remembers for a third time: Josh is here now.

He’s saved from having to answer the question, though, by a familiar figure suddenly sidling into view.  Hands clasped in front of his chest and a smile so tight it’s nearly shattering his face, Tick Pickwick is impossible to mistake.

Margo takes a step towards him immediately, her posture making her tower though she’s shorter than Tick, every inch a queen even in her very earthly skinny jeans.

“Tick, thank the ass-fucked gods you’re here.  No idea why we ended up on here this time, but we need to get back to the castle.  Can you steer this thing back?”

And Tick.  Just.

Giggles.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” he says.  “But no, I will _not_ be helping you return to the castle.  In fact, it is I who directed your portal here instead of to Castle Whitespire, with a little help from our generous fairy friends.”

“Tick ––” says Eliot, eyes wide and blinking fast.  Even Quentin finds himself taken aback. Tick’s always been a little twitchy, but only in that eager-to-please sort of Fillorian way.  He’s not some kind of –– arch villain, is he? Quentin’s _sure_ he would have noticed that.

“Yeah, you little weasel, what the fuck?” Margo helpfully adds.

“Let me put it in terms you will understand.”  Tick looks between Margo and Eliot, spreading his fingers towards them, and the smile suddenly drops off his face.  “You are the _worst._ The absolute worst leaders we have ever had!”

“Hey, come the fuck on!” Eliot objects.  “We’ve done _some_ –– we’re not _awful_ –– I mean, I taught you guys how to farm!”

But Tick doesn’t seem to give a shit.  He’s on a roll.

“Every single Child of Earth we are made to endure just heaps another pile of dung on top of our problems.  Every single time, you come in here, and you just somehow believe you have the _right!_ To rule a land of people you know nothing about!”

Margo sticks her hands on her hips.  “Look, it’s Ember and Umber’s rules, you can’t blame us for ––”

“Ah, but you’ve reached my point exactly.  Now that Ember and Umber are dead, magic is gone, and there’s no longer any need for the ridiculous rules to be followed.  Finally, I can have _my_ kingdom back.”

“ _Your_ kingdom?”

“I ran Fillory for _years_ before you awful people turned up.  My whole family has, for generations.  And we were certainly always better off with one of us behind the wheel than we ever have been with _you.”_

“I think you’re being a little bit harsh,” Quentin mumbles, although he has a sickening feeling that maybe Tick’s making a point.  Isn’t it kind of presumptuous that they did just come in and take over running Fillory without asking the people what they wanted? But then, it’s not _their_ fault.  They were practically forced into taking their thrones back when they were still just trying to defeat the beast.

Either way, Margo doesn’t seem to be as sympathetic to Tick’s plight as Quentin is.  “Oh, come off it. This place was a fucking mess when we turned up. You had no basis of government.  You were on the brink of war. Half your people were starving!”

“Because of magical unrest caused by Martin Chatwin, another one from your _earth,”_ Tick points out, looking down his nose with a distasteful expression.  Again, Quentin would like to disagree with him, but feels like he does have the tiniest fraction of a point.  “Now, that’s all over, though. Fillory is taking back our own kingdom, and sealing up the portals for _good,_ and we’ll never have to suffer another foolish Earth Child again.”

“Closing them for _good?”_ Quentin squeaks.  That, he thinks desperately, is a little harsh.  He was willing to give Tick a bit of credit up until then, but –– they need to be able to get back and forth to Fillory for this quest!  They might never be able to turn magic back on if Tick seals it up. Plus, like, just in general –– how is Quentin Coldwater supposed to go back to a life where he doesn’t have the option of popping in to Fillory sometimes?  How is he supposed to survive that? How are Eliot and Margo supposed to, when they’ve become so attached to their kingdom? It’s fundamentally unfair.

Tick ignores him, though, and all the rest of them, even as Eliot starts trying to diplomatically bargain with him, in such an _Eliot_ way that it makes Quentin’s heart flip over.  Instead of responding at all, Tick just cheerfully makes his way through the ship’s cabin, until he reaches the beating heart of the Muntjac.

“Muntjac, please take these traitors to the Infinite Waterfall.”

“ _Traitors?”_ Eliot repeats, sounding rather offended.

“Uh, dude, can I just point out that I’m not a traitor?  I was never even a king. I mean, I was just stand-in for a hot second,” Josh pipes up.  He’s really not having a great trip back to Fillory, but, well, it’s not Quentin’s fault.  Tick ignores him, too.

“At the point of no return, we will eject them into a lifeboat and let them be washed over the edge, where they will fall until they are either sliced to pieces by the jagged rocks or freeze to death in the waters.  It will be a perfect death.”

“Um, Eliot,” Quentin says lowly, just slightly hysterically, as he feels Eliot’s hand tighten on his shoulder.  “I’m not, like, super down for that plan, actually.”

“It’s not my top choice either,” Eliot agrees, sounding dizzy.  He pulls Quentin back a little, closer into his body, like he’s forgotten to care that Josh is there.  To be fair, Quentin thinks, if they’re gonna die, he doesn’t give much of a shit who sees him touching Eliot.  He’ll probably suck him off right in the middle of the boat if Eliot wants him to. If you’ve got one day to live, and all that.

Margo doesn’t seem to be having last-fuck thoughts, though.  She’s always more proactive than Quentin. No, Margo strides right up to the heart of the Muntjac as well, and shoves Tick out of the way.

“Girl, you do _not_ have to do this,” she says.  “Haven’t these Fillorian dickholes been ordering you around for too long?  These _men?_ Telling you sail here, dock there, toss these innocent kids over a death waterfall, whatever?  I mean, what gives them the right to boss you about?”

The Muntjac gives a little lurch.  Quentin feels disconcertingly like the boat is trying to _shrug._

“Ex- _actly_ ,” Margo agrees.  Maybe she speaks fluent sentient-boat; Quentin wouldn’t put it past her.  “All I’m saying, girl, is you could end the problem right here. Just get rid of Tick, and we won’t bother you!  You could go on a vacation. _Relax._ Dock anywhere you want.  Don’t you wanna be your own boss for once?”

The Muntjac rocks from side to side on the water.  Quentin wishes he had a seasickness patch.

Tick is also looking a little queasy, although maybe for different reasons.

“Now, Muntjac, don’t listen to the traitor,” he insists.  “Set a course for the Infinite Waterfall, now.”

The Muntjac doesn’t move.

Tick tries, “Please, Muntjac?”

The Muntjac doesn’t move.  Eliot’s nails are digging into Quentin’s shoulder.

Tick finally loses his patience, and snaps, “That’s an _order_ from your new King, Muntjac!”

Well, that seems to do it.  All of a sudden, the Muntjac gives a _mighty_ lurch, and rocks and rocks and rocks back and forth.  It doesn’t feel like a boat setting sail, though. It feels like a boat ––

_Taking off?_

This is mad, Quentin thinks, although he shouldn’t be surprised that anything that happens in Fillory by now, as he watches out of the windows while the Muntjac suddenly goes lurching up into the air.  A flying boat. They have a flying fucking boat, apparently.

From the look on his face, Tick Pickwick didn’t know this either.

Margo gives the Muntjac a comforting pat on the trunk.

“He’s trash, girl, just toss him out,” she says.

And the Muntjac spins with a jolt, tilting nearly sideways in the air.  They all topple and wobble on their feet, grabbing hold of the nearest stable beams, as books tumble off shelves and candles fall from desk, and ––

And Tick Pickwick goes plunging right out of an open porthole.

They’re only a few meters off the ground, and he lands perfectly fine with a splash in the water of the docks.  It’s possibly the funniest thing Quentin’s ever seen, but he’s far too shocked to laugh.

The Muntjac gives a little shake as she rights herself, more of the cabin’s furniture toppling over but Quentin somehow managing to keep his feet under himself, and then, as Tick Pickwick thrashes in the water below them like an angry armadillo, their ship soars away.

 

* * *

 

So.  From what Quentin can gather, Margo and Eliot have _technically_ been dethroned.

The two of them don’t seem to be giving up that easy, though.  The Muntjac seems content to fly around with them indefinitely, so they unpack the bags they’d packed for Whitespire into the little wooden bedrooms on the ship instead, and settle in to plan.

“What we need to do is call meetings with our allies,” Margo decides, on the first night, as they sit around and inspect what alcohol had survived the take-off.  Some of the better liquor bottles had smashed all over the floor, but by some miracle the wine rack had stayed up. Eliot selects one and starts pouring glasses.

“Right.  You’re so right,” El agrees, as he hands Margo a glass of wine.  “Uh, Bambi. Do we _have_ allies?”

“Of course we have allies,” she blusters.  Quentin can’t exactly name any, but he just stays quiet, sat down on his big cushion on the other side of the table, and immediately sets about drinking his own glass of wine.  It’s not exactly _good,_ because no Fillorian wine is good, but it’s alcohol at least.  “We have –– fucking hey, I’m still married to that Floater kid!  They’re _matrimonally_ obligated to back us up.  And you’ve still got that deal with West Loria, technically, El.”

 _Deal with West Loria?_ Quentin thinks.  And then, all at once, it comes flooding back to him.

Right.  Eliot is still engaged to Idri.

Quentin doesn’t know how that slipped his mind.  It always just seemed so –– _distant._ While he and El were away at the mosaic, they’d talked about Fen, and Fray, as the family Eliot had left behind.  But there had never been any mention of Idri. The last thing Quentin remembers was him getting turned into a rat, which was back before magic was even turned off.  Has Eliot seen him since then? Quentin supposes he must have; royal engagements don’t just disappear.

Quentin suddenly feels horribly, awfully sick.  He wishes once again that he had a seasickness patch.  Even if they are technically currently flying. He drinks some more wine and stares deep into his glass instead, not looking anywhere else, certainly not looking at any _one_ else.

“Well, I hardly know what’s still happening with that,” Eliot says, somewhere up above Quentin’s shoulder.  He must be sat on the couch with Margo. Quentin doesn’t look to check.

“Still,” Margo says, while Quentin breathes against his glass and watches it fog up.  “It’s worth dropping them a bunny, isn’t it, seeing if they’ll negotiate with us? If we got their fucking armies backing us against Tick, El, the rest of Fillory wouldn’t stand a chance.  We just need a way back in.”

“I suppose it’s worth a shot,” Eliot agrees, a little dubiously.  Then he lets out a loud sigh, and audibly sips at his drink. “Why can’t this whole ‘ruling a world’ thing ever just be _easy?”_

“Because nothing’s ever easy,” Quentin says, since it’s true.  And then he drinks some more. The wine doesn’t even taste that bad, if you get through enough of it.

 

* * *

 

The Floater Queen and King Idri both agree to a meeting, at the edge of the ocean which separates Fillory from the next land.  But it’ll take them a few days to fly there, so while the politics are on hold, they find themselves with just a whole lot of nothing to do.

Of course, because they’re four relatively maladjusted adults with a large supply of bad wine and Josh’s super-strain weed, they decide to mostly amuse themselves by smoking up and playing terrible drinking games.

Quentin’s never really liked drinking games –– too much pressure to have done a lot of scandalous stuff and be willing to talk about it, or be good at throwing very tiny balls with a lot of precision, neither of which are him.  But the good thing about them is the drunker you get, the less you care that the games suck. And even without that, Margo and Eliot are undisputed party kings for a reason; they know how to make this stuff fun.

So, three days of fucking around with them and Josh doesn’t seem that bad at all, once Quentin gets into it.  

“––so then I woke up _hanging_ in the tree.  Swear to the gods, dudes.  Whatever was in that brownie made me so convinced I was a squirrel that I just, like, completely gained the powers of one.  Didn’t fall out all night!”

Josh throws his hands out and sits back with a loose grin, while Eliot absolutely loses it laughing into his glass of wine.  Quentin hadn’t thought he’d ever meet anyone with better party stories than Margo and Eliot, but Josh and the antics he gets up to on his regular rotation of magical herbal drugs are giving them a run for their money.

“Okay, okay, my turn,” Margo insists, rolling her eyes as Eliot keeps laughing, doubled over on the floor.  He slipped off the couch a while ago, and now they’re all just on the floor sat around a low wooden table in the main room of the Muntjac’s cabin, but Eliot’s veered off to the side just to throw himself down with peak dramatic poise while he giggles.

It’s possible, Quentin thinks, they’ve had a _touch_ too much wine.  But what else is there to do?

“Nah, it’s my turn to ask someone, that’s, like, how the game works,” Josh insists, turning on her slightly dopey-eyed and confused, but Margo reaches over and pinches his lips shut, mumbling, _shush, shush,_ until he goes quiet.

“Okay,” she says, and then turns her wicked gaze Q’s way, catching him off guard just as he’s slurping the last drops of wine out of his glass.  “Mmm, _Quentin._ Truth or dare, baby?”

“Uh.  Truth,” says Quentin.  It is always decidedly safer than the other option, but _especially_ while playing with Margo.  She’s already had Josh streak naked up on the ship’s deck –– which, like, Quentin did not _ever_ want to see –– and Eliot lick some deadly-spicy Fillorian turnip jam they found in the pantry off the table.  Quentin is still sober enough to know he wants to retain dignity _and_ his tastebuds by the end of this, please.

Unfortunately, it’s still Margo, so truth isn’t much safer.  He begins to wonder if he should be regretting his decision when she leans across the table to him on her elbows, and sticks her tongue between her teeth while she grins.

“ _Mmm,_ okay.  Quentin Coldwater, were you really a virgin when you started Brakebills?”

Quentin splutters.  “Oh, for –– no! No, I wasn’t, I’ve told you that already!”

Eliot has just calmed down from his laughing fit about Josh, but Margo immediately takes up the slack as she cackles at Quentin’s flustered answer.

“Oh, you’re so flustered, I _so_ don’t believe you.  You have to tell us the story now, that’s the rules.”

Quentin isn’t actually sure those _are_ the rules, but his brain’s a little foggy from the wine and Eliot’s looking at him too, now, wide-eyed and curious, because even in their own little no-secrets-about-sex talk through their own histories when they first started hooking up, Quentin had managed to never really tell El much about his first time.  

“I promise the story is not remotely cool or sexy or interesting,” he tries to deflect, but Margo shakes her head so vigorously that her whole body moves.  Wine sloshes out of her glass down her arm, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Nuh-uh, you’re not getting out of it.  Come on, give us the juicy deets!”

Quentin sighs, and reaches out to pour himself some more wine, glancing around at the three faces around him –– Josh seems to barely be conscious anymore but Margo and Eliot are both wide-eyed and invested –– before he gives in.

“Oh, whatever.  I dunno, it was college.  I was like, just turned twenty?”  The antidepressants he’d been on since the age of sixteen had pretty much killed his sex drive, but after his first year of college he’d switched to new meds, and had rather suddenly become interested in sex.  “Uh, there was this girl from my medieval lit class. We were sort of friends. She invited me to come play Dungeons and Dragons at her apartment after class one time, but then there was this big traffic accident outside –– it was actually really sad and it made the news and everything because –– um, anyway.  So they closed down her road and the rest of the group couldn’t come anymore, and it was just us at her apartment. And, uh, we didn’t really have anything to do to pass the time, so she sort of just suggested we. Do it. So we did. On her gross futon.”

He doesn’t tell them the rest: how he came in about thirty seconds, which was ridiculously embarrassing, and sort of stutteringly offered to get her off too however she’d like, but she just said “it’s fine” and put her underwear back on, because they’d never even taken off most of their clothes, and then it was sort of over.  She’d gone into the bathroom and left Quentin to get cleaned up, feeling mortified and a little miserably like he wished it hadn’t happened at all.

It wasn’t a good first time.  Lots of people don’t have good first times, though, so he figures that’s fine.  It’s very _him,_ at least.

“Oh, Quentin,” says Margo, sounding both a little horrified and delighted.  Eliot, red-cheeked with drunkenness and a barely suppressed grin on his face, reaches across the table to stroke Quentin’s shoulder in a way that’s presumably meant to be comforting.  “ _Dungeons and Dragons,_ really?  I guess your type really is super nerdy girls, huh?”

Honestly, between that first girl –– Mei –– and Julia, and Alice, she’s not _exactly_ wrong.  Super smart girls who are very into school and some aspects of either fictional or real magic, at least.  But, of course, there are exceptions to every rule.

Quentin glances under his lashes to Eliot, sat across from him.  Eliot’s smart, but nobody in the history of time would dare accuse him of being _nerdy._ He’s also definitely not a girl, so there’s that.

“Not all the time,” Quentin says, and Margo grins like he’s said the right thing.  Eliot’s hand moves off his shoulder, but then he drags Quentin around the edge of the table to sit closer, tugging him off balance so Quentin lands with his head in Eliot’s lap.  He feels like he should protest, but Eliot’s hand has immediately begun stroking his hair, and it’s just so very nice. It doesn’t have to be romantic, anyway; he sees Margo and Eliot curl up like this all the time.

Across the table, Josh puts his head into his own arms and suddenly passes out.  He smoked rather a lot more than the rest of them before the drinking began, so Quentin figures that make sense.

“Lightweight,” Margo tuts, and steals the rest of Josh’s wine for herself.  “So, Q, any more delightful little embarrassing sexual encounters you want to share with us?”

“Uh, my turn is definitely over now,” Quentin says, looking at Margo without raising from Eliot’s lap.  She’s giving him the most _knowing_ fucking eyes, but –– oh, Quentin’s too tipsy to care.  “What about you, Margo? Truth or dare?”

“Only nutsacks pick truth,” she says, words blurring together just a tiny bit in her usual drawling tone.  Quentin’s rather pleased by the idea of her being drunk. He realises he’s seen Margo drink, but he’s never really seen her _drunk_ before.

“Okay, dare, then.  Uh. I dare you to.”  Everything he can think of as a good extreme dare just sounds creepy when you ask a girl to do it, Quentin abruptly realises.  He really is terrible at coming up with things in drinking games. “Um.”

“Steal Josh’s weed while he’s sleeping,” Eliot helpfully interjects from above, one hand leaving Quentin’s hair to gesture erratically through the air.  “And smoke the rest. If you’re not a _lightweight_ like him, that is.”

“Yes,” Quentin agrees, while he’s dragging Eliot’s hand back down to keep petting him again. “That.”

Margo cracks her knuckles and sets her eyes steady, like they’ve just given her an incredibly sacred task.  Quentin thinks she’s up to the mission. And at least nobody’s talking about his sex life anymore.

 

* * *

 

Since the Muntjac has the whole wonderful bigger-on-the-inside thing going on, there are plenty of bedrooms for them all down in the cabin.  On their first night aboard, they’d all claimed one, Eliot going for the room furthest back on the boat, even though it’s one of the smallest, because it was far away from both Margo and Josh.  Although Quentin unpacked his bags in a different room, he’s ended up in Eliot’s cabin every night so far, and tonight is no different.

Eliot’s not sure he and Quentin are _exactly_ being subtle about sharing a cabin, but Josh generally seems to not notice anything going on around him anyway, and he’s certainly not going to tonight, considering he’s still passed out.  They’d barely managed to move him onto the couch before the rest of them retired to their rooms, after several more glasses of wine. And Margo already knows, so who else is there to be subtle to?  

Eliot’s feeling a little buzzed, but the _drunk_ feeling he’d had earlier is starting to wear off, his head clearing since he slowed the pace of drinking a couple hours ago.  It’s been a fun evening, with lots of games and silly stories and he’d even convinced Margo to dance for a while, while Josh and Quentin played some ridiculous card game.  They’re reached the point where they’re definitely all ready for bed, though, even if –– well, even if Eliot’s tiredness is taking _slightly_ second place to a different need, right now, as Quentin follows him to his room without a thought.

“Well, goodnight, lovebirds.  Don’t fuck too loud,” Margo says, in the doorway to her own cabin, and Eliot watches the way Quentin’s face immediately turns bright red.  “I can hear it through the walls and it ruins my beauty sleep.”

“You can _not,_ and even if you could you’d just absolutely love it, you voyeur.”  She raises an eyebrow brattily, but Eliot kisses her goodnight anyway, because he loves her.

Quentin is still pink and embarrassed when they close the door behind them in Eliot’s cabin, and holds his ear up to the door like he’s checking they’re definitely far away enough for noises from the rest of the boat to not drift through.  Although Eliot doesn’t give a shit if Margo hears them –– she’s literally slept with both of them at the same time before, it’s not like it would be new information for her –– and Josh is unlikely to wake up for anything, he gets Quentin’s unease.

It is weird, having somebody know about them now.  Even if Margo isn’t outing them to the others, her occasional little comments about it always put him on the back foot, too.  Much as he loves Bambi, there’s no easy way to adjust to somebody suddenly knowing something you’ve kept very close and private for a long time.  There’s especially no easy way to adjust to someone making little jokes and needling comments, even in completely good spirits, about something that feels so _fragile._

For tonight, at least, their arrangement seems to have held up in the face of Margo’s teasing, though.  When Quentin’s satisfied that _he_ can’t hear anything from _Margo’s_ room, he lets Eliot tug him away from the door, pressing kisses into his neck.

“We should be quiet,” Quentin says, low, as his eyes flutter closed and he tilts his head back to give Eliot more access.  “Because of the others.”

“Quiet can be hot,” Eliot agrees rather idly.  He’s no longer drunk but he’s not really tethered to earth right now either; he feels light and distant and wants nothing other than the grounding touch of this very pretty boy, the warmth of his fingers, the sweet press of his lips.  It’s a night for slow fucking, Eliot thinks, trailing his hands up Quentin’s ribs and working him out of his hoodie. The sort of slow fucking that will still get them both off quickly, because they’re definitely both tired.

Eliot yanks off his own shirt, and then topples back onto the wooden bed mounted against the cabin wall.  It’s barely big enough for two people, certainly nothing like the ocean-wide bed he has at Whitespire or even his generous queen-size at Brakebills, but it’s enough for him and Quentin, who never like to get too far apart anyway.

Laying on the bed with Quentin still standing above him, bare-chested and with hair falling out of his cute little ponytail, lips wet and parted, Eliot leans up on one elbow, and cups a hand over his own crotch.

“Hey, baby,” he says, grinning, “Wanna go for a ride?”

Quentin rolls his eyes and says, “You’re not a motorbike, Eliot,” but he’s already shucking out of his jeans.

“Are you sure about that?  Maybe you should inspect my dick, just to check.”

“I’ll inspect your face,” Quentin mutters, as he crawls naked onto the bed and flops on top of Eliot, which is not the best comeback, but then he does kiss Eliot so it’s not entirely inaccurate.

They kiss slow and filthy, hands everywhere, tongues in each other’s mouths.  They take it so gentle for a while that their lips are barely even moving, just pressed tight and twitching against each other when something feels especially good.  Eliot’s almost beginning to feel sleepy from it, lulled into a daze by how delicious and burnt-sugar-sweet it is in the darkness, but Quentin’s also straddling his lap with his perfect ass settled into the bracket of Eliot’s hips, so Eliot’s certainly too turned on to fall asleep.

“Your pants should definitely be off by now,” Quentin mumbles a while later into Eliot’s lips, when their kissing has once again turned so slow that they’re really just breathing together with little nips of teeth thrown in.

“So take them off me,” Eliot suggests, leaning back into the pillows lazily.  The boat rocks beneath them, somehow feeling like they’re being batted around on the waves even though they’re nowhere near the water anymore.  Eliot imagines fucking Quentin to the rhythm of that motion, and his dick twitches.

“So needy _,”_ Quentin huffs, but he crawls down the bed to undress Eliot anyway, narrowly dodging Eliot trying to pinch his shoulder.

“Coming from you!” El protests, but then there’s not much else to say, because Quentin’s sucking at the fat head of his cock and everything behind Eliot’s eyelids has gone white.

He lets out a loud moan when Quentin slips a little further down, only for Quentin to suddenly pop back off again.  “ _Quiet,_ remember,” he hisses at Eliot, and climbs back up his body.  Eliot pouts –– he was enjoying that blowjob, _thank_ you very much –– but gives in.  If Quentin wants quiet, Eliot can do that.  Eliot can do whatever Quentin wants.

Right now, Quentin apparently wants to be fucked.  Eliot’s limbs all feel a little doughy and slow after the long night of drinking, but he grabs the lube –– helpfully packed from their trip back to earth this time –– from under the pillow and slots his fingers between Quentin’s legs easily enough, pressing a pair of slow fingers into Quentin’s ass while Quentin straddles him.

Quentin drops his hands down either side of Eliot’s head and leans forward –– eyes closed, mouth open and pink and deliciously wet –– as Eliot hooks his fingers inside him, scissors them apart to open Quentin up.  Sometimes he’ll spend hours fucking Quentin with his fingers. Sometimes he’ll make Q come from just that. But tonight he doesn’t think they have the stamina to draw this out for too long, and he wants to be inside Quentin before it ends, so he focuses on getting him nice and open as quick as possible.  Quentin takes fingers like a pro by now, barely squirming at the sensation, although his mouth slips a little wider open and he does start to rock back onto Eliot’s hand when El is three fingers deep.

“You ready?” Eliot asks, a tiny dazed smile playing on his lips, after a few seconds of watching Quentin like that.  Quentin’s eyes flutter open again.

“Yeah,” he gasps, and leans down on his elbows to kiss Eliot quickly, messily.  “Remember, _quiet.”_

“I think I should be the one telling you that,” Eliot murmurs, pleased, as he twists his fingers inside Quentin one last time and then pulls them free.  As if to prove his point, Quentin makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat. “You know how you get, baby.”

With his clean hand, Eliot strokes Quentin’s hair back from his forehead; it’s almost all slipped out from his hairband by now.  Quentin looks affronted, but still pushes into the touch.

“I can be quiet when I wanna be!” he says.  Eliot nods as if he’s taking that _very,_ very seriously, of course.

“Oh, yes, sure you can, my mistake,” he says, being an absolute little shit.  The edges of his lips twitch. Quentin smacks him in the chest.

“I can!” he insists, as one of his hands comes underneath himself to find Eliot’s dick.  Eliot swallows hard when he gets a hand around it, forgetting to tease for a moment. “I’ll fucking show you.”

And then Quentin sits on his dick, and Eliot forgets everything altogether.

It’s so good.  Eliot doesn’t know how it can be this good; still, _ever._ It’s just sex, Eliot has had so much sex, but none of it’s ever _really_ felt like this, not like Quentin’s tight fucking ass inching down his cock, swallowing him until he’s all gone, lost in the tight-wet press of Quentin, with Quentin settled heavy on his hips, and the two of them just breathe together, breathe, breathe, breathe.  Quentin rocks back and forwards just a tiny bit, not pulling off to give Eliot any friction at all, but it’s so hot that he can barely even care. In the cabin’s sparse candlelight he can see the splotchy red flush down Quentin’s chest, the way his tongue flicks out against his wet lips, the way his eyes are rolling up into his head like he’s in his own fucking world from how good it is.

That’s a feeling Eliot can understand.  Part of him feels overwhelmed; every inch of his body is so hot it nearly hurts, is prickling with so much feeling he nearly wants to weep.

He grabs hold of Quentin’s hips and groans, quiet as he can, when he can’t take it any longer.  “Q, baby, _move_ , please, fuck.”

Quentin does, like he’d just been waiting for Eliot to tell him; he presses one hand into the pillow next to Eliot’s head and grips the edge of the solid wooden headboard with the other, levering himself almost completely off Eliot’s dick and then slowly pushing back down again.  Then back up, and back down, and back up, and back down, it’s –– it’s so fucking good, the drag of it, the friction, the white-hot press of being inside Quentin, that Eliot feels like he might be going insane. He loves fucking Quentin, of course he does, always, but he also _really_ likes doing it like this, where Quentin’s the one moving; where he’s got control, and Eliot just gets to lay there and take it.  It’s not quite a reverse of their usual dynamic in bed, because Quentin still often likes a little direction, but it’s close to it, and Eliot finds the switch-up ridiculously hot.

Eliot’s nails dig into Quentin’s hips and his eyes flutter closed for a second as he swallows, hard, against the desperate noise trying to work its way out of his throat.  As Quentin twists up and down in his lap, pace starting to turn a little erratic, Eliot plants his feet flat on the bed and bends his knees, so that he has a tiny bit of leverage to fuck up into Quentin, too.  But he lets Quentin do most of the work, still, losing himself in it, panting and gasping and twitching his hips as the heat between them builds, builds, builds, reaching near crescendo.

It’s like something suddenly snaps in Quentin, then, and a broken moan works its way out of his throat as he grabs hold of the headboard with both hands and just fucking _goes_ for it, faster and faster until he’s just _bouncing_ in Eliot’s lap, grinding down frantically, chasing the pleasure like it’s running from him, like he needs to catch up, like he’s _desperate_.

“Shh, baby, shh,” Eliot gasps, because Quentin wanted to be quiet even if Eliot doesn’t care _,_ and raises one hand to Quentin’s lips, the other grabbing his hips and holding onto them tight, dragging him down.  “Slow, okay? Just go slow.”

“ _But––”_ Quentin gasps, before Eliot drags him down by the back of the neck and he loses the rest of the words in Eliot’s lips.

Eliot’s orgasm takes him by surprise.  Everything is so hot, he’s just aching and tingling all over, that he doesn’t notice it building in his balls until suddenly Quentin slams down into his hips particularly hard and Eliot just _goes,_ eyes rolling back in his head, every point of pleasure in his whole body just _rushing_ between his legs all at once, and he barely has a chance to choke out, “ _Baby_ , oh, I’m coming,” before he’s yanking Quentin down in his lap and just spurting into him, hips twitching up a few desperate last times as his vision whites out.

His orgasm seems to go on forever, although he knows it’s just a few seconds.  Then all the tension goes out of him at once and he drops back to the bed, releasing his hold on Quentin’s hips, gasping as Q wriggles on top of him.

“Fuck, that’s a lot,” El says, forcing his eyes open.  “Are you close, Q?”

Quentin doesn’t look capable of human speech, but he makes a throaty noise that Eliot takes to mean _fuck yes._ Eliot wishes he could keep fucking him through it, because Quentin _loves_ coming like that, but it’s way too oversensitive.

“Okay, I’m gonna pull out now, then I’m gonna get you off, baby, just hold on,” Eliot says.  His eyes feel heavy and he’s really fighting the urge to yawn, but he _refuses_ to be one of those guys who just rolls over and passes out when they’re done.  Eliot Waugh is a far more classy lover than that. Hands returning to Quentin’s hips while Quentin pants above him, Eliot rolls them over in one swift move.  In the small bed it leaves them pressed against the wall, but there’s enough space for Eliot to spread Quentin’s thighs apart. “This is gonna be messy, sorry –– _fuck_.”

His dick is ridiculously sensitive as he pulls out.  Usually Eliot doesn’t mind a bit of stimulation after he’s come, but that orgasm was just –– insanely intense.  He takes a moment to breathe heavy, and then feels a bit like he’s been struck by lightning as he stares at the mess of his own come leaking out of Quentin’s ass.  It’s hardly the first time he’s seen that, but it never ceases to be the sexiest thing in the fucking universe.

“ _Eliot_ ,” Quentin finally gasps above him, reminding El of the task at hand.  Right. He looks entirely sinful as Eliot sits up and surveys him –– sweaty and flushed and his hair falling everywhere, his eyes scrunched closed, his stomach wet with his own precome, his legs spread shamelessly wide.  Eliot wants to devour him whole.

“Remember to keep quiet,” Eliot whispers, mostly because the idea’s just sort of sexy at this point, Quentin so desperately wanting to be silent but not being able to control the noises coming out of his mouth.  Quentin’s hips are twitching up and down in tiny little motions like he’s so turned on that he’s trying to hump the _air,_ and he drags the corner of a pillow over his mouth to muffle his noises.

Eliot finally takes pity on him, and wraps his lips around Quentin’s dick.

He’s already swollen and leaking and desperate, his balls drawn up close to his body, and it barely takes a minute of Eliot’s slow hard sucking for Quentin to be spurting down his throat, moaning nonsense into the pillow that he’s still clutching white-knuckled to his mouth.

Eliot swallows and pulls off, crawling up the bed to pull the pillow away from Quentin and kiss him instead.  Quentin kisses back dopey and slow, exactly how Eliot feels. Both their eyes are closed, and Eliot feels like it would be an almost Herculean effort to open his again.  The world is starting to feel a little foggy around the edges, like the only sensations he can pick out are the lingering pleasure in his balls and the wet press of Quentin’s mouth.

“You should get cleaned up before we sleep,” Eliot finally manages to mutter, even if the words slur a little, as one of his hands drops between Quentin’s legs to feel where Eliot’s come is sort of dripping out of him.  But Quentin just scrunches his eyes closed tighter and rolls into his chest.

“Can’t be bothered,” he insists, hitting maybe every other syllable of the words.  “Deal w’th it in the m'rning.”

“It’s gonna feel gross by then,” Eliot warns him, but his own eyes are already falling closed again, every inch of his body heavy and satisfied, and he lets himself sink into the mattress too, tugging Quentin’s arm closer around him.  And then all of a sudden a thought crawls into his mind, and Eliot has to ask, “Hey, Q?”

“Mmm,” says Quentin sleepily.

“Was I your first time with a man?”

Quentin goes a little stiff against Eliot’s side for a moment, like he definitely wasn’t expecting that, but then he softens again and just shrugs.

“Yeah.  Are you asking ‘cos we talked about ––” He lets out a huge, jaw-cracking yawn –– “About the bi thing or the virginity thing, lately?”

“Bit of both,” Eliot mumbles, too tired to lie.  Quentin’s still wearing the bi-flag bracelet Margo got him back on earth a few days ago, and Eliot just keeps noticing it.  Quentin hums against his chest, lips pressing sideways against the skin.

“Mmm.  Well. I’d –– mmm –– I’d thought about men a few times before and all, but I was too depressed for most of my teen awakening years to actually care about sex, so it slowed me down a bit.  I didn’t know I was bi exactly until now, but I never really thought I was straight. And, mmm, yeah, you were my first guy. Only guy.”

Eliot hates himself for the wave of insecurity that brings up.  It’s ridiculous –– he’s always assumed he was Quentin’s only experience with a man, of course he did, Quentin never suggested otherwise.  And hearing that Quentin actually does identify as bisexual destroys a lot of Eliot’s fears in some ways, fears that Quentin really is _only_ with Eliot because he doesn’t have a better option for stress relief, or that he’s going to have some sort of gay panic and call things off.  But still. It doesn’t end the worries completely. If Quentin’s never been with _any_ other guys, Eliot can’t help but miserably think, can he really know for sure that it’s for him?

Eliot tries to tell himself not to let his own insecurities turn into outright biphobia, but it’s a delicate line to walk when you distrust your own appeal as much as he does.

Still, trying to make light of it, because they’re certainly both too exhausted for a serious conversation right now and Eliot doesn’t want to reveal these thoughts anyway, he just says, “Well, at least it sounds like I was better than your first time with a girl.”

“You’re better than all the times,” Quentin mumbles into the darkness, and then drifts into sleep a second later, his mouth open against Eliot’s chest.

 _Fuck_ , thinks Eliot, as his own exhausted mind drops towards unconsciousness as well.   _Fuck_.  What is he supposed to do with a statement like that?  How is he supposed to stop his foolish heart from latching onto that, and never letting go?

 

* * *

 

The Muntjac lands in a dock at the very edge of the Fillorian border two days later, waiting only long enough for King Idri and the Floater Queen to climb aboard before taking off again.  Quentin’s glad they tied down most of the furniture, because amazing as their flying boat is, she doesn’t exactly take off _gentle._

Josh is still sleeping off a hangover in his room and Quentin feels like he’s better off staying out of the way too; even if he is still _technically_ a king, he’s got nothing to do with these negotiations.  That’s all Eliot and Margo, who are far better at this sort of thing, seem completely fucking natural at it somehow.  Instead Quentin sits at a little desk in the corner of the cabin with a book he’d found on the boat’s shelves about Whitespire, trying to figure out how they can sneak into the throne room for the next key.  

Except, he’s not really focusing on the book anymore.  He’s glancing across the room to where Margo is greeting the Floater Queen with a terse handshake, and Eliot is greeting Idri with a lingering kiss on each cheek.

He knows it’s the customary greeting between betrothed people in Fillory.  But that doesn’t mean that seeing Eliot’s lips touch someone else doesn’t make it feel like gravel is pushing through Quentin’s veins.

Fuck, he thinks, but Eliot and Idri make such a picture together.  El’s dressed up in some fine Fillorian royal garb today instead of his earth clothes, and somehow that always makes him feel a little less like _Quentin’s_ Eliot.  In his mind, Quentin’s Eliot will always be wearing that soft pale suit he was the first time Quentin ever saw him, or the outfit he had on when they went to the mosaic, the one he’d pretty much only worn for over a year, the one he’d been wearing the first time Quentin ever properly kissed him.  In his long, gauzy red shirt embroidered with glimmering patterns and floaty black silk trousers, he looks regal and historical and untouchable.

But not untouchable to Idri.  They suit standing next to each other.  Idri’s outfit is less extravagant, perhaps, but he still looks like he belongs on a throne in his lush furs.  He’s taller than Quentin, distinguished and handsome, holding himself with the posture of a warrior and the confidence of a king.

Quentin’s never felt smaller or more boring in his life, in his black hoodie and ratty jeans, sat cross-legged on a desk chair in a shadowy corner while the adults debate literal war on the other side of the room.

“All we’re asking is for your support in taking back our thrones,” Margo’s saying, her voice carrying enough for Quentin to hear the determined edge behind her words.  “The only reason Eliot and I are in this mess is because of fairy meddling bullshit. We just need to get back _in_ to our kingdom to clear that up with the people of Fillory, and then ––”

“Deposed rulers don’t get their thrones back,” the Floater Queen says sharply, and possibly a little too much like she’s enjoying the fact.  “They die at the hands of their people, or they take themselves off into exile. Those are your options.”

“Is that really how you talk to your _allies_?”

“Allies?  Is that what you’re calling yourselves?  My dear, your marriage to my son was never even consummated.  All you did was tell him lies about the act of intercourse. It’s not yet valid in the eyes of our laws.”

 _Oops_ , thinks Quentin, who had largely forgotten about Margo’s marriage at all.

“He told you what I said about sex?”

“He’s my son.  He tells me _everything.”_

That’s sort of gross.  Apparently, Eliot agrees, as he says slowly and as diplomatically as possible, “Well, that’s a lot to process.”

“In any case, we decline to help you reclaim your thrones.  In fact, we decline to help your kingdom at _all._ Come morning, our army will be advancing on Fillory.”

They’d been warned a while back that war was brewing, that with the leadership uncertainty in Fillory the nearby countries were planning ways to seize the land, but this is the first Quentin’s heard about the invasions _definitely_ going ahead.  Startled, he finally looks up from his book to Eliot and Margo across the room.  Their backs are to him, but he can recognise the tense posture in Eliot’s shoulders as an _oh, fucking hell._

“Sadly, Loria has to decline as well,” says King Idri.  His voice is ridiculously deep and attractive, and Quentin is suddenly rather glad he’s busy being startled about the sudden declarations of war, or he’d have too much headspace free to start hating his own voice.  “With magic gone, Loria has the advantage over Fillory for the first time. We intend to take back everything Fillory has unfairly gained from us over the years. I have to do it for my people.”

To his credit, Idri sounds more regretful than the Floater Queen, but he’s still steadfast in his decision.

“What about your engagement to Eliot?” Margo asks, sounding affronted.  Quentin hates the word _engagement._ It’s such a stupid word, he thinks, turning his eyes back to his book even though his eyes won’t focus on any of the letters.  Engaging is supposed to be an active word. What are you engaging the other person in? Engaging them in conversation? Engaging them in combat?  Engaging them in an obligation to a loveless marriage with a gorgeous king who could call an entire army against their enemies and protect their kingdom for all time ––

Quentin turns a page of his book quickly, even though he’s not read a single word of the last one.

“Eliot is no longer king,” says Idri, and here he really _does_ sound regretful, his voice pitched gentler, softer, “So it’s no longer valid.”

Something in Quentin’s chest jumps, but he doesn’t know what it is.  It doesn’t exactly feel good. The engagement to Idri was supposed to be a seriously good thing for Fillory, right?

Quentin is an absolutely awful person, he realises abruptly, with a sick feeling in his stomach.  He’s an absolutely awful person, because he almost hopes Eliot never gets his throne back, just so he won’t marry another man.

And what gives Quentin the right to wish for that?  He doesn’t have a place in Eliot’s life, not really.  He’s a friend, sure. He’s sure they’ll stay friends forever.  And at the moment, Eliot’s passing time with him. But it’s not like Quentin’s part of Eliot’s _future_ in a big way.  Not the way Idri could be, if Eliot wanted to marry him.  If there hadn’t been all the troubles with magic, Quentin thinks sickeningly, Eliot and Idri would probably be married by now.  What is Quentin, compared to that? He’s practically nothing.

“Will you excuse us for one second,” Eliot is saying nicely, and his voice cuts through Quentin’s internal spiral like it always does.  “We just have to consult our royal advisor, for a moment.”

 _We have an advisor?_ Quentin thinks, baffled.   _That would be helpful, we could do with some fucking advice._  But then he realises Eliot is dragging Margo over towards _him._ Oh, okay.  So he’s just a cover, then.

“This is not going exactly as we’d hoped,” Eliot notes in a quiet voice, as soon as he and Margo are crowded above Quentin.  Quentin looks up at them from his chair and clutches his book so tight his knuckles go white, just so he’ll resist the urge to touch Eliot in that pretty shirt.

“Not ex-fucking-actly, no,” Margo agrees.  “If we’re not careful, we’re gonna have those two forming an alliance with each other on _our_ fucking boat right now and dooming our kingdom for good.”

“Right.  Okay, we need to split them up,” Eliot decides.  “We need to split them up, and then –– and then what.  What’s our best plan, here?”

Margo thinks but doesn’t say anything for several long seconds, so Quentin finally clears his throat.  They both startle and look down at him like they’d forgotten he was there, which Margo and Eliot do rather a lot when they get wrapped up in their own little debates.  But right now, they don’t seem to be reaching the obvious point by themselves.

“You offer them magic,” Quentin says.   _Duh._

 

* * *

 

The bedroom door swings shut behind them, and Eliot’s hands spread over Idri’s shoulders, tugging at his thick fur coat until it drops to the floor.  Idri lets him, and then turns around, and draws Eliot quickly into a kiss.

Eliot kisses him back, because of course he does.  It doesn’t matter if his stomach is churning miserably as he does it.

This is totally fine, Eliot tells himself; totally normal.  Although they’re not engaged anymore, technically, _this_ has always been the dynamic between the two of them.  It’s natural that this would be the best way to convince Idri to be on his side.  And it’s not like anything’s changed since the last time they did this, anyway.

Eliot is still technically single, other than his marriage to Fen.  He’s not in a relationship. And Quentin has made it obvious, plenty of times lately, that this thing between them isn’t exclusive.  Quentin hadn’t even looked up from his book when Eliot went to invite Idri to negotiate in another room.

Quentin doesn’t care, so why should Eliot?  Idri is hot and nice and still has those _biceps,_ after all.  The fact that Eliot’s skin is prickling uncomfortably shouldn’t mean a thing.

He tries not to read into the fact that he’d led Idri to one of the unoccupied bedrooms, not the one Eliot’s been half-sharing with Quentin all week.  This room was just closer.

“This is still a negotiation, you know,” Eliot reminds him in between kisses, as Idri works him back towards the bed.  Eliot feels uncomfortably guilty for a moment, and has to remind himself once again: he’s not dating Quentin.

He’s not anything with Quentin, not really.  Eliot climbs onto the bed on his knees, and pulls Idri on top of him.

“I’ve missed this,” says Idri into his mouth, pushing Eliot into the mattress.  It’s hot, Eliot has to admit. Idri is gorgeous and a good kisser, and Eliot always liked him.  It’s not like they really got the chance to be close, but Idri represented hope at a time when things seemed hopeless –– hope that just maybe Eliot could be a good king in the world he’d jumped into back when all he wanted was to die, hope that he could avert war and save his people and make his life have meaning after all.  Things aren’t the same, now, but that doesn’t mean the feeling’s changed. Eliot still thinks he’s a good guy.

He just desperately wishes this didn’t feel so _wrong._

He rolls them over on the bed all at once, holding Idri’s hands down instead and arcing over him.  Idri’s body feels too big beneath him; too tall, too muscly. It’s not fair that Eliot’s picturing a small, familiar frame instead while he does this, but he’s gotten spoilt on the luxury of being a one-man man for more than a year now, and he realises with an unsettling jolt that he’s almost forgotten how to do this _casually._ How to do this with someone whose body you don’t know intimately already, whose little cues and quirks don’t feel like second nature to respond to.

Idri leans up for another kiss, but Eliot instinctively moves away.  He clears his throat the next moment, trying to play it off, and undoes a couple buttons of his long shirt, but leaves it there.

“So about that army,” Eliot continues, sitting back on Idri’s hips.  The best thing he can do is keep this about business as much as possible, he thinks.  That will make it feel less hideously wrong in his bones. Fuck, Idri’s half-hard beneath him and Eliot’s dick hasn’t even got the memo yet.  It’s almost about to become embarrassing.

“Just because I like you doesn’t mean anything changes in war, Eliot,” Idri says, before he grabs Eliot quickly around the back and flips him over again, their bodies bouncing against the mattress with the force at which they land.

Eliot breathes up at him, open-mouthed.  It’s not that Quentin’s not strong enough to manhandle him a _little_ bit when he’s in the mood, but this all just feels so very different.  His brain knows it’s fine, but his heart just keeps telling him it’s _wrong, wrong, wrong,_ the wrong hands touching him, the wrong script being followed.

It’s not that Eliot’s uncomfortable with the concept of sleeping with Idri.  He knows it would feel good. He knows he’d like everything they’d do together.  He knows he even likes Idri as a person.

But he just doesn’t really want this to go like this.

 _When did casual sex stop being my favourite thing in the world?_ Eliot wonders miserably, feeling utterly betrayed by his own heart. It always causes trouble like this when he falls in love –– which is rare, oh so rare, and has _never_ happened on the scale that it has with Quentin, but.  Still.

Eliot so adores being free with sex in every direction when he’s emotionally unattached, but the moment his heart latches onto someone, it’s like all the fun just goes out of being casual.  It happened when he first met Mike, and barely a couple of days later couldn’t even stand the thought of going to Encanto Occulto and fucking his way across the beach with Margo, which was supposed to be their _best spring break ever_ .   It’s happened again now with Quentin, who is so firmly rooted in Eliot’s idea of love, Eliot’s idea of sex, Eliot’s idea of _family_ , that El can’t even bring himself to seduce a gorgeous man he was _engaged_ to a couple of weeks ago.  Even when he knows Quentin doesn’t love him back.   _This is bullshit and I hold you personally responsible_ , Eliot tells his heart, but it doesn’t budge.

He pushes Idri off him, and Idri raises his eyebrows but goes easily, sitting up on the bed.  Eliot crawls behind him, and trails a finger down Idri’s neck instead. At least he doesn’t have to make eye contact, like this.

“Idri, I know the terms of our old alliance don’t work anymore, and that’s fine.”  It’s actually very, _very_ fine with Eliot.  “But I’m going to level with you right now.  At this moment, Margo is telling the Stone Queen about _just_ how close we are to getting magic back, and she’s threatening her with it.”

“Is that what you’re doing with me?  About to threaten me? Because that would be a foolish decision, Child of Earth,” Idri says, his voice suddenly booming and indignant and very much a King’s.  It’s super hot. Eliot kisses his neck and doesn’t even feel bad for a second.

“No, that’s not what I’m doing.  I’m trying to make you an _offer_.”

Idri cautiously settles down again, tilting his head just a little to let Eliot kiss him more.  “An offer of what?”

“What else?  Magic.” Eliot stops kissing him, just props his chin on Idri’s shoulder.  The touching like this feels nice, not nearly as wrong. “Because we really are close to getting it back, Idri.  And when we do, our magicians will be able to identify anyone with magical talent. It’s likely that includes a whole lot of your citizens, you know, and they’ve just never been educated on how to use it.  You said Fillory has always had the upper hand against your land because we had magic? We’ll educate your magicians, until they’re as powerful as any of ours. Call off your army, and let me give magic to Loria as well.”

Idri finally turns around on the bed, and looks at Eliot.  “I’m interested,” he says. Magic really was the magic word.  “But if you’re lying, Eliot ––”

“I’m not lying,” Eliot promises, staring right into his eyes.  “I _promise._ And of course, you’re well within your rights to wage war on us if it turns out I am.”

“Fine, then.  On the condition that you bring magic to the kingdom of Loria, we will hold our fire for now.”

Eliot kisses him to say thank you, but then Idri starts kissing deeper, and tries to push him back on the bed, and Eliot just  –– can’t. He wants so badly to want it, but he just doesn’t.

So he tugs his way artfully out of Idri’s hands, submits to one last deep, breathtaking kiss, and then scrambles off the bed.

“I just, uh ––” Eliot says, a little out of breath, as he fixes his curls and does up one of the buttons on his shirt.  “As nice as this has been –– and truly, it has been very nice to see you again, Idri, even if we’re not betrothed and such anymore–– we should probably get back out there and shake on the negotiations with High Queen Margo.  I’m sure you’re eager to get off our boat and back to your kingdom, and the Floater Queen must be, too.”

Idri gives him a little odd, knowing look that makes Eliot squirm in place, but climbs off the bed obediently enough anyway, conceding to the point.  Eliot swallows and shrugs back into his jacket, fiddling with the collar to make sure it isn’t twisted, and not looking Idri’s way.

“You have this look in your eye,” Idri tells him suddenly, as he puts his huge fur coat back on, glancing sideways at Eliot.  “It’s exactly how I imagine I looked every time I tried taking a husband while my late wife was still alive. Everyone told me it was a good political move, but I just couldn’t fathom it, while I had her.”

“It’s not like that, between me and my wife,” Eliot says diplomatically, even as his heart hammers in his chest.

“No?  I suppose it must be someone else who’s got such a hold on you, then.”  He stares at Eliot, and Eliot stares back, because _fuck,_ is he really that obvious?  That’s hideous, that’s awful to know, he doesn’t _want_ to be obvious, especially not so much that someone who barely knows him can see it.  “A shame. I still feel we would have been a very lovely match. But I’m more interested in your offer of magic, of course.”

“I’m mostly more interested in your army,” Eliot admits, in lieu of saying anything else which will probably reveal far too much of himself.  It’s not a very diplomatic thing to say, but Idri grins at him, and Eliot smiles back. “But it really has been lovely to see you, Idri.”

They head back out to see what deal Margo and the Floater Queen have come to in their absence, and Eliot finds himself ridiculously, overwhelmingly glad that he didn’t sleep with Idri.  It may be ridiculous for him to care, but he _does_ care.  And until he figures out how to fix that, Eliot figures it’s best to avoid making himself too miserable over things he can control.

If that means he’s only fucking Quentin, then.  Well. He’ll just make the most of that, and drag things out for as long as he possibly can before Quentin calls it off.

 

* * *

 

The Muntjac soars close enough to the ground for Idri and the Floater Queen to climb down to earth again, a rather tense goodbye exchanged between all, and then they’re gone, and it’s just the questers left on the boat.  Josh has finally woken up and emerged from his room, and Margo swiftly enlists him to make her a drink. Eliot swallows both his heart and his pride, and goes to the other corner of the room, where Quentin is still sat with his book about Whitespire, not looking up.

“Doesn’t look like you’ve got far since I last saw you,” Eliot jokes, noticing that the book is still cracked pretty much exactly in the middle, like it was when their allies first arrived.  Quentin blinks and looks up at him like he hadn’t even noticed Eliot arrive. “Not a thrilling read, I take it?”

“Hah, no, um, definitely not.  Just a lot of –– details to really focus on, so it’s slow going,” Quentin says, and quickly closes the book without marking his place.  There’s something odd in his expression, but Eliot doesn’t know what it is or how to address it. Quentin’s probably getting himself all worked up over the quest, again.  “So, um, how’d it go with Idri?”

“Oh, you know, as un-awkwardly as talking your ex-fiance down from declaring war on you can possibly go,” Eliot says breezily, although he feels anything but.  He maybe rather intentionally puts that _ex_ in there to make the point, but Quentin’s eyes are turned down, so Eliot can’t see if he has any real reaction.

“Cool, sounds, uh, sounds good,” Quentin says, and then prods a finger towards Eliot’s stomach awkwardly, stopping short of actually touching him.  “You’re missing a couple buttons on your shirt, by the way.”

Oh.  Right.  Well. It’s not like Quentin didn’t have a clue what Eliot was doing with Idri in there, right?  Somehow, that doesn’t stop him feeling supremely awkward that he’s left, like, _evidence_ of it for Quentin to find.  Eliot quickly does up the offending buttons, trying not to notice how Quentin watches his fingers as he does it.

“Fun with Idri, then?  Is he as good in bed as he looks like he’d be?” Quentin suddenly asks.  His voice is light in a very _Quentin_ way, which is odd, but Eliot doesn't know what to read into it.  Maybe Quentin is attracted to Idri.  A proper Fillorian king is definitely Quentin's type.  

“Uh _,”_ says Eliot, swallowing.  His heart feels achey and raw in his chest.  “Well, I mean, of course I used a few of my natural masculine wiles to speed things along, but we didn’t actually, I mean.  We didn’t _fuck._ Or do much of anything, not really, it –– _”_

Quentin’s eyes go inexplicably wide all of a sudden and he shoves his hair behind his ears, interrupting in a quick flurry of words, “ _Oh_ , cool, I mean I just assumed ––”

“––just didn’t really feel right in the moment ––”

“––not that I mean cool like _good,_ just, like, you do whatever you want to do, obviously, it’s got nothing to do with me ––”

“––so I just ––”

“Okay, so the Floater fucks and West Loria are _tentatively_ on board as allies,” Margo suddenly says, crashing out of nowhere with a cocktail in one hand.  Eliot had almost completely forgotten “But only _if_ we get magic back, and soon.  This is a delicate fucking game we’re playing here, people, and time is of the essence.  So. Where are we on this next key quest?”

She throws herself into a lush armchair near Quentin’s desk, Josh sauntering over behind her with more drinks, which he offers around.  Eliot desperately wants to continue talking to Quentin but can see that’s thoroughly off the table, so he just downs half his drink in one go and sits down beside Margo, comforting himself with the fact that he at least has a nice _chaise lounge_ in his life, even if his personal life is a fucking flying shipwreck.

“Right, um, yes, so that’s actually perfect timing,” Quentin admits, blinking at Eliot for a moment before scrambling across the table and coming up with the quest book, which he flips open to the latest chapter.  “ _So_.  Uh, the book says the sixth key will only reveal itself in the light of two half-moons joining, which is something that does happen in Fillory, since there are two moons in the sky.”

“Like two black and white cookies split apart and then put back together to form one giant… white cookie,” Josh says, starting out supremely confident and trailing off towards the end.  Eliot just. Blinks at him.

“Uh.  Sure. Anyway, so it’s gonna be super bright, and it happens tonight.  This is our only shot for like, two more months, so. We really need to get to the castle tonight.  The only problem is, uh ––”

“That we’ve been violently overthrown and are currently on the run from the very people inhabiting that castle?” Eliot suggests.

“Well, yes, pretty much.”

“Well then,” says Margo, with a smile so pleased it looks nearly painful.  “Guess we’re fucking lucky we’ve got a flying boat. How’s everyone’s abseiling skills?”

 

* * *

 

When darkness has fallen and the two moons are rising the sky, the four of them land with an ungraceful _thunk_ on the balcony outside the throne room.  The Muntjac soars away, but Quentin’s confident enough she’ll be back for them; she seems to adore Margo.

Now, there’s just the whole business of figuring out this key and getting the fuck out of here before the fairies catch them.

“Okay, so in this chapter,” Quentin says quietly, peering at the book in the light of the moonbeams pouring through the window, “the daughter, she, uh, she finally becomes the knight that she set out to be, and right after she’s knighted, her shield catches a moonbeam and reflects it back, and the new key is revealed.”

“That’s all it says?” Margo checks, peering over his shoulder.  And no, it’s not _all_ it says, because this chapter contained about half a novel’s worth of exposition of her finally becoming a knight, but it’s mostly all the relevant stuff.

“Hate to bring this up, dudes, but none of us are knights with magical shields,” Josh helpfully says.  Quentin rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I’d kind of noticed.  Will you just let me finish? So, the moonlight has to hit three keystones to reveal the key.  There’s three doors with three keystones ––” He gestures around the dim room, pointing them out.  “––but none of them are near a window. So that’s the puzzle.”

“Okay, okay,” Eliot says, in the way he speaks when he’s really setting his mind to something.  He steps closer, and winds one arm around Quentin’s shoulder. “So, let’s logic this.”

Oh, fuck.  Quentin is suddenly hit with a thousand memories of the beginning of their mosaic quest, the way Eliot had stood just like this and said something just like that, and then it had been two years of just –– _everything._ Eliot’s still wearing his ridiculously attractive royal outfit, and he smells incredible, like seawater and wine.

Quentin closes his eyes for just a second.   _Focus on the quest, focus on the quest, you absolute idiot._ Ever since Idri left, everything inside him feels tight and horrible and confused, tangled in some web between jealousy and sadness and horniness and love and he just –– can't focus on  _any_ of that right now.

“Yeah,” he says, a beat too late, clearing his throat.  He opens his eyes again to see Josh picking around the room, inspecting some stone candle sconces like they might hold the answer.  “I guess we basically just have to reflect the light to the right places, but I don’t know how.”

“Oh, easy,” says Eliot, and lets go of Quentin to march towards a mirror on the other side of the room.  He takes it off the wall, lowers it to the ground, and stamps on it with the heel of one of his high boots.  It shatters immediately.

Quentin is honestly a little turned on by the action and desperately trying not to show it, but Josh wheels around looking harried.  “ _Shh_ , guys, reminder there are still a whole host of various guards patrolling around for people who want us exiled or killed, so, like ––”

“Oh, stick a dick in it, Hoberman,” says Margo, who is perhaps more keen than any of them to get this finished now that she knows magic is what will get her kingdom back.  She hurries over to Eliot, Quentin following quick on her heels, to help him start arranging mirror shards.

It’s painstakingly precise work, but they manage to get the shards arranged at the perfect angles on top of a stack of old furniture, and a rush of pleasure swarms Quentin’s stomach as they finally reflect a beam of moonlight onto the third and final keystone.  He looks around to see where the key has appeared.

Except.  It hasn’t.  Nothing has changed.

“ _What_ ?” Quentin splutters, turning back to the book in his hands to make sure they haven’t missed something, even though he knows they haven’t, knows this was _supposed_ to work.

“Well, that’s fucking depressing,” Eliot observes, sighing and leaning back against a pillar.  A moment later, he squints and picks something up from a nook in the stone. “Uh, why is there a joint hidden in the throne room?”

Josh immediately perks up.  “Oh, sweet! I forgot I hid a bunch of party favours around this place when I was being a baller Substitute High King.”

Quentin had forgotten Josh was ever high king at all, but he decides not to mention that given how much else he’s forgotten about Josh lately.  Instead he just raises his eyebrows as he watches Josh light the joint off one of the flaming torches on the walls and take a drag.

“Are you serious right now?” Quentin asks, but Josh doesn’t seem all that phased.

Eliot looks moderately displeased for a moment, but then sighs and holds his hand out.  “Well, since I’m the one who found it, I definitely deserve some.” Quentin gives him a _look,_ which Eliot deflects with a defensive shrug.  “What! Maybe it’ll encourage, uh, creative thinking.”

“Right, _sure,”_ Quentin drawls.  He’d protest more but he knows Eliot, and a bit of casual substance abuse after failing at problem-solving is like a staple of his personality, so instead Q just turns to Margo with a sigh.  “I guess it’s just me and you working on this then. What are we missing?”

But before they get a chance to throw around any theories, Josh suddenly lets out a gasp.  The next moment, Eliot is behind Quentin’s shoulders, holding the joint up to his lips for him with two long fingers.

“Q, Q, take a drag of this,” he says.  Quentin lets out a tense, frustrated huff.

“El, now is _really_ not the time for ––”

“Quentin, would you just _trust_ me?”  Which, well –– yes, Quentin does trust him.  So, slightly stroppy but giving in, he wraps his lips around the edge of the joint and inhales just a little, staring Eliot right in the eyes while he holds the smoke in his lungs and then blows it out into El’s face to annoy him.

“Right, okay, are you happy now?  Can I get back to my ––” But. Oh.  Shit.

Quentin has turned back to the keystone wall, except all of a sudden, it’s like he’s not really seeing that wall.  He’s seeing through it like the lines of the dimensions themselves are muddled. And there, in a moss-covered, green-tinged version of their castle, Quentin can see a glimmering key.

“ _See other worlds_ , bitches,” Josh says behind them, throwing his hands in the air.  “Didn’t I tell you I always have the best shit?”

“The key is in the fairy realm,” Quentin says, barely able to believe it.

“The key is in the fairy realm,” Eliot agrees, and rests his chin on top of Quentin’s head.  “See, Q, didn’t I tell you drugs were always the answer?”

Eliot’s definitely going to be a brat about this, Quentin can already tell, but he’s more concerned with the newly emerging problem right now.  He hadn’t anticipated this when they set off on this quest. And they have limited time to get this right.

“Uh, sure, the answer except for one thing, Eliot.  How the fuck are we supposed to get it _out_ of there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact, in the show there appears to be nO EXPLANATION for how josh figures out the key is in the fairy realm, so i went with weed. i'm taking way more liberties with the quest plots at this point bc they were making Basically Zero Sense in canon by the end of the season, who's surprised
> 
> anyway there we have it, the longest chapter to date !! this was a fuckin bitch to write so pls leave a comment if u liked it and let me know ♥️
> 
> as always u can find me on tumblr at [disasterbiquentin](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com)!


	7. things become possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's another almost-20k-chap! might wanna make a cup of tea before u start this one lads
> 
> also: OKAY, so i feel like i should preface this. this is the "23" episode. in canon, i Really love that episode. however, u'll see almost none of that ep's content in here. i went off book for this one ! this was partly bc i wanted a different penny storyline, and partly just bc, well.... i wanted to. u'll see when u read it. there's your head's up!

 

_ Sometimes things become possible if we want them bad enough. _

_ \-- T.S. Eliot _

* * *

 

Back on the Muntjac, Quentin doesn’t retire to bed when everyone else does, not even with Eliot looking unfairly gorgeous and sleepy and giving him soft eyes.  Quentin can’t –– feels like he can’t relax, now that they’ve hit up to this new obstacle. He’d been so optimistic about this leg of the quest. It had seemed like it was, for once, going to be simple, just a logic puzzle they could work their way through. 

But now the key is trapped in a whole other realm full of terrifying powerful creatures with no inclination to help them, and Quentin doesn’t know what to do.

He sits up all night, head propped in his hands, at the uncomfortable wooden desk in the corner of the cabin, and pours over every book he can find in the Muntjac for mentions of fairies. There’s barely anything, and even if there was Q thinks he’d probably be missing half of it by the time a few hours have passed, when he’s so tired that his bones hurt and his eyes are straining to read in the weak candlelight, but he keeps going. Sits there with his knees drawn up to his chest, all tangled in his own hoodie, his hair greasy from a couple days too long without washing it and messy from how many times he’s run his hands through it with stress, and feels awful and stressed and just — like his chest is wrapped in a steel band and he can never get quite enough air into his lungs as he strains against it. 

He keeps looking, though.  Even as the sun rises, even as the other three eventually stumble out of their bedrooms, well-slept and messy and ready to improvise some breakfast out of the odd foods in the ship’s pantry before they begin trying to problem solve. Quentin mostly ignores them, even when they say good morning to him. 

After a little while, Eliot comes and sets a plate of breakfast by his elbow, but Quentin has just found a passage of a book which talks about alternate worlds and he’s so desperately focused on trying to turn it into a solution that he lets the food go cold without even glancing its way.

Eventually he glances up, just for a moment, to see a rather meaningful look being passed between Margo and Eliot.  He has the sudden feeling of being talked about even though nobody’s said anything, but he’s right on the loopy edge of sleep deprived and can barely bring himself to care. 

“Okay, dude, toss me a book,” Josh suddenly says a minute later, finishing his breakfast with a clatter of cutlery and standing up, clapping his hands together. “Let’s research montage the shit out of this problem.”

The metal band around Quentin’s chest gets tighter.

“Uh,” he says, looking with foggy eyes across the haphazard tumble of books spread across his desk.  They’re sort of arranged by which ones he’s read already and which ones he hasn’t and which ones he has read but wants to double check because they might be more helpful than they first let on, but — “I’m, uh, I’ve actually got a pretty delicate system going on over here, so I think it’s fine.  Maybe, um, maybe you guys can just focus on the Fillory problems and I’ll focus on the key?”

He knows he’s not being logical. He knows more minds and more hands and some less sleep-deprived pairs of eyes would undoubtedly speed at least the research portion of this along. 

But he just.  Can’t handle it.  He feels like he’s dancing on the knife’s edge of a panic attack he might never come out of again, and the only thing tamping it down is his  _complete control_ over this entire  _fuck up_ of a situation.

Everything is just building up all at once.  Two different kingdoms are going to wage war on Fillory if they don’t get magic back soon.  The Library are planning something evil and Alice is helping them. Fairies are ravaging Fillory and being tortured on earth, and he can’t do anything about either of those things.  And Eliot ––

Well.  Quentin is hopelessly, painfully in love with Eliot, and he can’t do anything about it, and he’s just counting down the days until Eliot says _this has been fun, but_ , and goes off with someone like Idri, a powerful king, or maybe some beautiful bohemian artist on earth, or just generally anyone better than Quentin, and ––

Quentin can’t control a single thing about any of that. All he can control right now is the quest. 

And not even the quest is fucking going well. 

He doesn’t realise he’s screwed his eyes tight closed until a careful hand is landing on his shoulder and he can’t even see whose it is. He knows, though, of course: knows it’s Eliot’s.  He’d recognise that touch anywhere, the slope of Eliot’s long fingers against the side of his neck.

Quentin sucks in a breath, and it feels like his chest just shatters in two. 

“Okay, why don’t we take some of these books to your room,” Eliot suggests, as gently as you might talk to a child who’s working themselves into a tantrum –– which, Quentin hates being talked to like that, but he also can’t deny it’s pretty much how he feels.  “Then you can keep reading, but at least you’ll be a bit comfier, hmm? Sitting like that must be doing things to your spine that are against the Geneva Convention.”

Quentin breathes out, and doesn’t really have space to argue right now.

“Yeah, I –– okay.”  He tucks his hair behind his ears and grabs as many books as he can before levering himself out of the desk chair.

He really didn’t realise how uncomfortable he was until he moves, but his knees crack and his spine hurts, and he has to twist his head to either side a couple of times to feel remotely upright again. He lets Eliot steer him through the cabin, ignoring Margo and Josh, and down the corridor of the ship, all the way to Eliot’s bedroom instead of the one Quentin had actually claimed. It makes sense, he supposes; he’s actually spent more time in there anyway.  

“You didn’t come to bed last night, and you haven’t eaten anything,” Eliot says, once the door has closed behind them. He takes the books out of Quentin’s arms and sets them on the bed before pushing Q to sit down on it too, and peering close at his face like he’s inspecting it.  “No offence, sweetheart, but you look like an absolute mess.” Quentin feels a little dazed with tiredness, and watches Eliot’s adam’s apple bob up and down as he suddenly swallows hard, and then admits in a quieter tone, “I’m worried about you, Q. You’re not taking care of yourself.”

“Sorry,” Quentin says, his eyes turning down. He looks at his own knees and think about how awful he must look right now, unwashed hair and bags under his eyes, and how he’s just creating more stress for Eliot the more he messes his up. Why can’t he just be a functioning human being for once in his life?  “I’ll try harder, I’m just — sorry.”

Eliot regards him for a long second.

“You know you don’t have to say sorry for everything in the universe, right?” he finally says, slowly, carefully.  “You apologise so much that it’s nearly half your vocabulary.”

“Oh,” says Quentin, “Sorry.  I mean –– uh ––”

Which makes Eliot roll his eyes, of course, before sitting down on the bed as well, slinging a loose arm around Quentin’s shoulder to draw him closer, free hand coming up to pat Quentin’s chest.

“You poor hopeless maladjusted boy,” says Eliot, which Quentin feels he should be offended by, maybe, except that El’s tone is so ridiculously fond.  “I’m not telling you off. I’m just telling you. You don’t need to apologise for being stressed at a ridiculously stressful time. For just being a human being living their life while events happen around them.  And the burden of all the world’s mistakes certainly isn’t on you, so you don’t need to carry it.”

Quentin swallows. He closes his eyes. 

“Don’t I, though?” 

His voice is quiet, but Eliot still hears him, because Eliot always hears him.  With his eyes closed he can’t see whatever Eliot’s expression does, but he can hear the noise that works it’s way out of Eliot’s throat, soft and sad, and then suddenly there’s a soft press of lips against his forehead.

Quentin melts into it, and nearly hates himself for that. It’s not fair that Eliot can comfort him so perfectly when they’re not even anything to each other, when Eliot doesn’t even love him. He hates that Eliot is good at this and he hates that he wants it to mean more than it does.  Eliot kisses his forehead again, and Quentin forced himself to pull away. It actually hurts less. 

“Baby boy, no.  This is an impossible thing to do alone.  Why won’t you let the rest of us help?”

“I should be able to do it myself.”  Quentin’s tiredness is suddenly overwhelmed by frustration instead, like an angry itch running through his whole body. He pulls the quest book out of the stack beside them and dumps it into his lap with a rough noise.  “I’m supposed to be able to do this. I’m supposed to save everything with this quest, Eliot.”

“Technically, it’s a _group_ quest, though, Q.”  Eliot runs a hand over Quentin’s hair. “I mean, if we’re getting really technical, the Great Cock gave it to me.  I know you’ve taken on the most of it, because you’re Quentin and you’re noble and you feel like bad things are all your fault —“

“Considering I’m the one who killed Ember I think it’s safe to say this actually is, categorically, my fault —“

“— but you don’t have to take all this on alone.”

Quentin is sulkily quiet for a moment, reaching out to restlessly flick his thumbnail against the cover of the book.

“A quest is supposed to change a quester,” he finally says, not quite meeting Eliot’s eyes.  “The person who starts it can’t finish it. That’s why I want to do it myself, why I — why I need to be the one.  Eliot, this is what’s supposed to make me _better_.”

There. He’s said it.  He’s finally put his stupidest hope out there into the world. As if anything will ever be able to fix Quentin Coldwater. 

“Q,” Eliot says, voice suddenly thick.  He takes a deep breath and then draws Quentin tightly into his arms.  “Oh, Q, you sweet, sweet, stupid boy. You don’t need to be changed. Okay? We’re all messed up as fuck, Quentin, that’s just a fact of our lives by this point and one I’m frankly not going to contest in case the universe is listening and decides to throw even more bullshit at us out of spite.  But you –– you, Quentin Coldwater, are wonderful in all your fucked-up-ness. You’re already the best of all of us. And you are going to have a long, long life to grow as a person, okay? You don’t need to fit it all into this one year.” Eliot pauses, kisses the top of Quentin’s head again, and finishes, “And for what it’s worth, this Quentin has got this far in the quest already.  Who says he won’t be able to finish it?”

Quentin’s heart aches, aches, aches.

After a long, long silence, all he can bring himself to say is, “Maybe we should take a quick trip back to earth. Julia might be able to help with the fairies.”

It’s a tiny concession to all of Eliot’s points, most of which Quentin isn’t remotely ready to hear or believe yet.  But it seems to make Eliot happy. 

He draws Quentin ever closer, so much that Quentin’s nearly in his lap, and squeezes tight.

“Good boy,” says Eliot, which sets off a whole string of feelings Quentin also doesn’t want to address right now.  “I’m sure Julia will know just what to do about the fairies.”  
  


* * *

 

On earth that afternoon, Julia gives him her best  _ sorry _ eyes and says, “I don’t know what to do about the fairies.”

“Oh,” says Quentin idly, and sits down on the couch. Eliot had made him nap for a few hours but he’s still rather exhausted and he just keeps getting knocked down by new things.  It feels a bit like a metaphor for his whole life. “Well, that’s not surprising, with how things are going.”

“They do have the key, I know that much,” Julia says, apologetic. “But the key magic is all that’s keeping their realm together. Their whole world collapses if they give it to us. They’re just not gonna let us have it.”

Quentin thinks and thinks and thinks for several very long moments.

He has absolutely zero ideas.

“I do have one idea, though,” Julia pipes up, half-raising her hand like she’s in class.  They all turn to look at her, and she smiles. “It’s not completely to do with the fairies, but it could help in the long run.  I… I think I know how to get Penny back.”

 

* * *

  
“I got the idea from a book someone had left out in the cottage,” Julia explains, as they all stare at her wide-eyed, producing a huge old leatherbound book from a nearby shelf and flicking it open. “It’s about all the most complex forms of magic, but it was open to the chapter on bone knitting.  Literally building bodies from scratch.”

“It was probably Alice’s,” Quentin says, one finger worrying around a loose thread on his sweater. “She was, uh, always interested in that.  Plus it’s a Library book.”

Nobody seems to quite know how to respond to that, given that Alice and the library are a currently touchy subject, but luckily Julia’s got more to say. 

“Well, at first, I flicked through it, but I didn’t think much of it.  But then I took the truth key so I could talk to the fairies at the McAllisters, and while I was still holding it, I saw Penny.  And we suddenly put it together, that maybe I could just... build him a new body.”

“Jules, this is serious, _serious_ magic,” Quentin says, as he takes the open book from her and flicks through the bone knitting chapter. “The circumstances alone are insane, let alone the actual casting. I know you have magic, but are you sure you can actually do this?”

Julia looks at him, and bites her lip, sheepish.  “I sort of already have.”

 

* * *

 

The body on the bed is one of the creepiest things Quentin has ever seen. It’s a near perfect Penny-replica, except for how it’s not quite finished, so there are patches where you can see right through to the tendons in his legs and the network of veins under his head.  But as they just stand there, Julia not even casting, little golden threads of magic are working all around the unfinished areas, stitching particles together out of thin air and sewing skin right before their eyes.

It’s incredible. It’s crazy beautiful fucking magic. Quentin feels almost dizzy. 

“When I first tried, I basically just passed out,” Julia admits, as she shows them around it — Quentin and Margo and Eliot and Josh and even Kady, who seems barely able to look at the body but also like she doesn’t want to take her eyes off it.  “But then, well, my magic started getting stronger, and I managed to knit the bones, and then I got stronger some more, and before I knew it, I could work on the organs, and then it didn’t even really need me anymore. It’s been building itself for about a week now. I think it’s almost done.”  She gives Quentin a little smile, nearly sheepish. “I didn’t want to tell you guys until I was sure I could do it.”

“And you’re sure now?” Kady asks.  Her voice is rough, and her fingertips are brushing the body’s hand just the tiniest bit. “I mean, how do we know it’s not just gonna fall the fuck apart the second he jumps into it and kill him for real this time?”

It’s a valid concern, Quentin thinks.  It’s the sort of thing he’d be concerned about if this were Eliot.  But he also trusts Julia, and her crazy new magic, and he also knows that at the end of the day, this is Penny’s only second chance.

“It’ll work,” Julia promises.  She steps closer. “Look, this is — it’s instinctual magic, mostly, and if you’re strong enough to do it, it’s not the sort of thing that goes  _ wrong _ .  But you can ask Penny, if you want to check.”

Julia holds out the truth key — she must have had it in her pocket all this time, Quentin thinks, which makes sense if she’s mostly talking to fairies and Penny, these days.  They all crowd around her and touch a finger to it each, and Penny snaps into view at once, stood next to his brand new body at the bed.

“Dudes,” he says.  He sounds annoyed. Death really hasn’t softened him. “Can someone please cover up my junk?”

Oh, yeah.  The body is also completely naked.  It had seemed such a medical and magical marvel that Quentin had barely noticed that at first, but now all of a sudden seeing the real Penny next to it he realises  _ that is Penny’s naked body. _

“Bleh,” says Quentin immediately, and throws a blanket over its crotch.

“Hey, I was enjoying that view,” Margo protests, but only lightly, as Kady shoots her a death stare. 

“Can we get back to the topic at hand here, please?  Like, making sure Penny’s not gonna project into some faulty body and die for real two seconds later?  We’ve only got one fucking shot, here.”

“Kades, I promise,” Penny says. His voice is always softer talking to her than when he’s talking to anyone else.  It’s like everyone else in the room disappears for him when he looks at her. Quentin knows the feeling. “I’ve been watching Julia work on this, and watching it build itself, it’s — it’s perfect.  Better than my old body, probably. No liver damage, for one thing. And it’s safe. I mean, it’s real, it works — it has a heartbeat, already. You can listen if you want.”

Kady goes first, but then they all do take a turn to listen, ears pressed close to the new body’s chest, at the perfectly steady thump-thump-thump of a brand new heart.  A heart Julia _made_.

“Jules, this is seriously fucking incredible,” Quentin tells her, as he pulls away.  He feels almost like he’s seeing her for the first time, even though he’s known Julia since they were grubby little four year olds running around their gardens with sticks and pretending they were magic wands. 

“Totally trippy but in a really sick way,” Josh pipes up. 

“Yeah, I mean, I gotta give props where it’s due, pretty fucking good,”  Margo agrees. She pokes one of the new Penny’s cheeks. “How come no one ever told  _ me _ I could just be building a man from scratch any time I wanted one.”

“Ooh, we could have made young Leo,” Eliot says, sounding slightly too dreamy for Quentin’s liking.

“We would have just fought over him until we killed each other, you know that.”

Eliot looks ready to try it anyway, but Julia interjects, “The body’s no use without a spirit, though.  The heart beats, but that’s all the function you get until there’s actually a person inside it. And that’s, uh, sort of the problem.” 

“Problem?” Kady asks, lightning quick, tearing her eyes away from the spot on Penny’s chest that she’s been staring at ever since she heard the heartbeat.  “If you’re fucking with me right now, Wicker, I swear to god—“

“Okay, calm down, Kady.  This is real, I promise, it’s just — Penny is still on the astral plane.  We need a way to lead him to the body.”

Quentin just.  Blinks at her. And then looks at the sort-of-ghost-Penny, who is stood, looking impatient, less than a foot away from the body.

“Jules, Penny is…  _ right  _ there,” he observes, gesturing rather effusively with the hand not still touching the truth key.  “Can’t he just jump right into it?”

“It  _ looks  _ like he’s right there, but he’s actually on an entirely different plane, in a different dimension, just viewing us where we are,” Julia corrects.  Quentin immediately gets the idea that this might be a little over his head. “His spirit needs to cross the boundaries between that world and this one, which gets into a whole mess of different dimensions, and it’s impossible to navigate without a beacon.  I might have some power now, but I don’t know enough about dimensions to navigate the circumstances I’d need to pull  _ that  _ sort of spell out of my ass.  That’s where the problem comes in.  In order to get his spirit back to this realm and into a body, there’s only one sort of summoning ritual I can find.  And I –– can’t do it.”

“Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious here,” says Eliot, from across the room.  Quentin’s eyes find him immediately and he almost forgets about Penny altogether, for a second.  “But you are strong enough to build an entire body from scratch and just happen to be the only person with magic in the world right now, so if you can’t do the ritual, certainly none of the rest of us are going to be able to.”

“It’s not about power,” says Julia, and then –– her cheeks go the tiniest bit pink.  _ Oh no _ , thinks Quentin.  “Quentin and Alice actually did a variation on it before, when Penny was lost in another realm while he was travelling.  It’s sort of —––it makes a guiding beacon, to bring the spirit to the right realm.  And it’s, um.  A sex ritual.”

_ Oh _ .

Everyone is suddenly looking at Quentin.  He goes bright red. 

“We don’t really have to re-live that, do we?” he asks.

He feels a little queasy.  That memory is already tied up in the bubbling shame of finding out Alice thought he was bad in bed –– and really just how sexually incompatible they were in general –– and Penny seeing him post-coital, and now it has the added discomfort of remembering Alice at all when he’s not even sure if she’s working against everything he stands for right now. 

“Sorry, Q, but I think we do have to,” Julia says, her nose crinkling apologetically.  “Travellers are so rare that there’s almost nothing written about rituals specifically for them.  We pretty much just know of this one sort of summoning. And it worked last time, didn’t it?”

Quentin really doesn’t want to think about  _ last time.   _ He can feel Eliot’s eyes on him –– can feel several people’s eyes on him, actually –– but he desperately doesn’t want to think about that.  He keeps just only looking at Julia, hoping she’s about to say  _ sike. _

She doesn’t.

“The body’s going to be done building itself soon –– like, really soon,” Jules says, her eyes flicking to her ridiculously miraculous creation on the bed.  “And I think we need to do the ritual as soon as possible after it’s finished. I don’t know what happens to a body if you just leave it without a person inside for too long.  But that means we need to sort this ritual out, like,  _ today.   _ And we need a couple to do it.”

Which just leaves the question of: who?

“If Quinn and Coldwater managed it before, we should just go with the same thing.  It’d be safest,” Kady says. “Do we seriously have no idea where she is?”

Quentin tries to imagine it, for one second –– being with Alice again like  _ that  _ –– and instantly feels a little horrified.  Not because she’s not still gorgeous, and important to him, but just.  Well. The last time they fucked was while she was still all up in her trauma of coming back from being a niffin, and was unhealthy for both of them at  _ best,  _ and even before that, sex with her had always been more anxiety inducing than anything else.  Incredible in some ways, but also –– not simple.  He remembers the stop-and-start attempts it took them to complete this ritual the first time around.  The way it nearly ruined their whole relationship.

And that’s before he even considers the whole  _ sleeping with someone other than Eliot  _ thing, at this point in time.  It’s something just entirely outside the realm of Quentin’s imagination.  What even is sex, without Eliot’s body there? What is pleasure without El to guide him through it?  Something not worth having.

Thankfully, they really don’t know where Alice is, so Quentin doesn’t have to worry too hard about this.

“If it'll help to have volunteers, I can fuck any of the ladies who are up for it,” Josh offers, after a very long pause.  He doesn’t sound like he’s trying to be creepy, he’s clearly actually trying to help, but it still sounds slightly uncomfortable to Quentin’s ears.  Julia and Kady both remain very silent, which he thinks is fair enough.

“Oh, fuck it,” Margo says, after another uncomfortable silence.  “If nobody else is gonna nut up, I can take one for the team. I’ve had sex for worse reasons.”

“That might not be the… best solution,” Julia says delicately.  “I mean, if you guys have never been together before, that is. It’s just, the ritual sort of hinges on…”

She trails off, looking like she’s figuring out how to phrase it.  Quentin, the only one who has done this before, lets out a heavy sigh.

“You have to come at the exact same time.”

“Ah, yeah, that,” Julia agrees.  “I’m going to be pushing out some of my magic into the atmosphere to create enough ambient to power the ritual, but I don’t think I could make enough to power the actual sex magic as well.  That element would need to happen –– organically. We really need people who already know each other’s bodies well enough.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s probably not gonna work,” Margo agreed, flicking her fingers Josh’s way.  “I require a delicate touch, and I’m way too hot for Hoberman to keep it together that long.”

“Hey,” says Josh, but doesn’t exactly disagree.  

Quentin looks around their little group, and is suddenly struck by just how much of a romantic trainwreck every single one of them is.  They’re literally all single. Any long-term partners any of them have ever had are either dead, memory wiped, or missing-after-being-resurrected-from-the-dead-kind-of-badly.

Fuck.  Is he going to have to ––

“Well, don’t look at me, it’s my fucking boyfriend we’re trying to bring back,” says Kady.

She’s right.  As far as Quentin knows, she and Penny were fighting at the time when he died, but he still gets it.  That was her  _ person. _

And now, beside them all on the bed, there’s a newly knitted Penny-body, and Penny’s spirit is hovering beside it.  Penny, who took a stab wound from a cursed knife for Quentin when they still barely knew each other. Penny, who has acted like a total dick so many times, but also always saved their asses when they needed it.  Penny, who might be essential to this quest, to saving magic for the whole world. Penny, who didn’t deserve to die at age twenty-four, because nobody deserves that.

And Quentin can only think of one solution.

Fuck.

“Um,” says Quentin, and glances at Eliot over his shoulder, and then goes immediately bright red, and looks back around the room.  “Uh.”

“What is it, Q?” asks Julia, peering at him.  “Do you know where Alice is? D’you think you guys could do it again?”

“No, no, definitely not,” Quentin says immediately, and then doesn’t meet her eyes, or anyone’s eyes, as he swallows hard and admits –– because Penny’s  _ life  _ is on the line and so is their key quest apparently, and all of that is just far more important than a bit of secret sex, right?  And even if Eliot hates him for just blurting it out, Quentin can deal with that once they’ve saved Penny –– “Just. Um. Don’t ask why, but.  Me and Eliot can do it.”

Which kind of.  Just.

Seems to shut everyone down in an instant.

He can't bring himself to look back at Eliot.  To know if it was okay for him to just blurt that out.  But that means all he can focus on are the other faces around them –– the way they've all gone open-mouthed and confused, the way nobody seems to have blinked since he said it.  Quentin feels the hot rush of anxiety through his heart, the way his stomach churns around nothing, while he just stands there –– under scrutiny, it feels like.

Like he's just been  _revealed._ What a horrible fuck feeling, he thinks, as the room hangs in stasis, caught still in its shock.

“Wait,  _ you _ guys are fucking?  Am I the only one who didn’t know this?” Josh asks, the first to break the silence, his voice coming out baffled and all too loud.  Quentin winces.

Rather smug, Margo announces, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m the  _ only  _ one who knew.  And I have plenty of gossip about it that I’m happy to share later.  The details are entirely too juicy to handle sober.”

“Margo, don’t you dare,” says Eliot, although there’s not much warning in his tone.  His free hand slides loosely onto Quentin’s shoulder, pulling him a little closer, and Quentin’s almost amused by the way everyone else’s eyes seem to track the motion immediately.  “Now, nobody let your pretty little heads pop off with surprise. We’re not betrothed or anything. There were simply some time-travel hijinks on one leg of the quest, and we had rather a lot of time to kill in a boring place.  I’m sure we’d all have fucked whoever ended up there with us, eventually, just for something to do.”

That’s not –– exactly how Quentin would have described it, but it sums it up neatly enough for the purposes of this moment, he supposes, even if it makes his throat feel a little uncomfortably tight.

It doesn’t seem to clarify  _ much  _ for anyone else, though, if the expressions on their faces are anything to go by.  He can’t imagine they’re that surprised by Eliot –– Eliot, who has either offered or tried to fuck all of his male friends at least once, and even a few of the female ones when he’s had enough to drink –– so it must be Quentin they’re turning so much baffled surprise at.  

Quentin tries not to feel self-conscious, but it’s hard.  Even though he’s probably imagining it, he feels like he’s being scrutinised.  Like everybody is suddenly drawing their own conclusions of what he and Eliot are to each other.  Quentin’s desperate attempt to keep this perilous situation in the grips of his own tight control has finally failed for good.  The knowledge belongs to people other than him, now. And he can’t control what they do with it, or what that does to him and El.

This is just –– this is  _ exactly  _ why he didn’t want them to know.

While they’re all just fucking staring and Quentin is tugging his hoodie sleeves down over his hands and feeling increasingly knotted up over it all, Kady recovers her voice to say, “Damn, didn’t know you had it in you, Coldwater.”

“Oh, he has it in him,” Eliot immediately interjects, looking far too pleased with himself, and Quentin groans.  “He’s had it in him over and —“

“El, shut up!”

“— over and  _ over _ again.  What, Q? It’s  _ true _ .”

“Oh, my god.  Stop talking or I’m taking back the offer, Eliot.”

“Seriously, Coldwater, you’re into dudes?  How the fuck did you manage to hide  _ that  _ but you couldn’t even ward enough to keep Taylor fucking Swift from getting into my head for a whole year?” Penny asks.  He doesn’t sound like he’s asking in a  _ bad  _ way, just like he’s ridiculously surprised he managed to miss it.  Given how much of Quentin’s internal life Penny had to bear witness to in first year, that’s probably fair enough.

Still, because Q likes being a bit of a shit to Penny, he rolls his eyes and holds up his left hand.  “I’m literally wearing a bi pride bracelet, it can’t be that surprising.”

“I don’t pay attention to your wrists, Quentin!” Penny says, nearly hysterically.  “I have bigger shit to deal with!”

Which is –– fair, but still makes Quentin want to laugh.  He nearly does, before swallowing the noise instead, feeling slightly dizzy and unwell, and finally flicking his gaze to Julia.  His oldest friend in the world. He never did get the chance to come out to her, in the approximately two seconds he’s had since figuring out he had an identity to come out about at all.

“ _ Well,”  _ says Julia.  Her eyes are wide and haven’t left Quentin’s, her lips parted a little in surprise, but he thinks he can see something  _ almost  _ like amusement in her stare.  He’s not sure where the hell that’s coming from, but he thinks he’ll save the whole decompression for a private conversation with her later.  Preferably much later. Maybe in several years. Maybe on their deathbeds. “If you guys think you’ve got it covered, then –– yeah, that could work.”

“Don’t worry,” Eliot assures her, or maybe Penny, while Quentin focuses on breathing deep to get his blush under control, “Telekinesis came first, but my real discipline has  _ always  _ been simultaneous orgasms.  We’ll do great.”

“I did  _ not  _ need to know that,” Penny groans, but, like, hey.  They’re saving his life. He can get over it.

 

* * *

  
Julia helpfully separates them from the rest of the group to actually talk through the details of the ritual.  It’s still slightly mortifying, but less so without Margo’s knowing looks and Kady and Penny gaping at them like they didn’t think Quentin was cool enough to take a dick and Josh just being  _ Josh  _ about everything _. _

They leave that lot looking at the new Penny-body, and head downstairs, where Eliot immediately begins making a drink, as Julia explains the details she’s worked out for the ritual.  Quentin, who’d thought she was entirely busy with the fairies on earth, is surprised to learn just how much thought she’s put into all of this.

“So I guess you guys can choose where you want to, um, set everything up,” Julia says, sat on the couch beside Quentin, one knee up so she’s angled to face him, while Eliot bustles around with liquor bottles behind them.

“We can use my bedroom,” El suggests, as he inspects the label on an expensive looking gin.  “It’s bigger than Quentin’s, so we’ll have enough floor space to put Penny’s new body and all the summoning elements out of sight somewhere.  I’m assuming that has to be actually  _ in  _ the room with us.”

“Yeah, that would work best,” Julia agrees.  “So, then, I’ll just be outside, and I’ll try and channel out enough of my magic to fill your room.  I’ve been practicing, and it seems to work to an extent. Like I said before, it won’t be enough ambient magic for you to cast your own spells, or anything.  It’s more like –– hmm, I don’t know how to explain this. It’s like I can provide magic, but I can’t provide any of the power behind it? So, yeah, no spells.  But it’ll work for a ritual that’s producing its own energy.”

“Wait, how is the ritual producing energy?” Quentin asks, feeling overwhelmed by absolutely all of this.

Eliot leans over the back of the couch like he’s helping him cheat on a test and loud-whispers into Quentin’s ear, “ _ Sexual _ energy, Q.  That’s kind of the whole point.”

Quentin’s cheeks go pink once again.

“Oh, uh. Right.”

“My power isn’t infinite, though. Pushing out magic like that, I think I’ll only be able to hold it for about fifteen minutes.”

“Guess we’ll skip the foreplay,” Eliot says, cheerfully stirring his bright blue cocktail and seeming unaffected by this entire thing.  Julia shoots Quentin an apologetic glance; Quentin is still bright red in the face, and avoids her eyes. It’s one thing for people to know you’ve got a sex life, but it’s quite another for there to be this much discussion about it.

“Yeah, it might be better if you — um, prepared?  Beforehand? Since there won’t be much time,” Julia says delicately.  There’s a pink tint to the tops of her cheeks now, too.

Oh, Lord, Quentin thinks all of a sudden, is she telling me  _ when to get fingered _ ? 

This is not a level of detail to which he ever needed his best friend to be involved in his sex life.  Quentin groans, and puts his head in his hands.

“Okay, this is just, like, incredibly awkward,” he announces, through the spread of his fingers. “And I think if we just acknowledge that it’s incredibly awkward, we’ll stop having to pretend it isn’t, and that will be at least slightly better.”

“Who’s feeling awkward?” Eliot asks, rather gleefully.  He’s getting way too much enjoyment out of this. Quentin’s totally going to make him pay for it later, once the whole Penny’s-life-is-on-the-line thing is out of the way. 

“I’m sure it would be lovely to be as liberated as you, Eliot, but try and remember that me and Quentin are uptight, suburban ex-Ivy leaguers,” Julia says, half-joking but definitely not wrong, as she winds an arm around Quentin’s shoulders. “Take pity on us.”

“Oh, alright,” El says loftily, but there’s fondness in his tone.  When Quentin peeks through the gaps in his fingers, he can see that Eliot’s smiling as he takes a sip of his cocktail.  “Shall I spare you the conversation, and sum it up? Before we start the spell, I’m going to go feel Quentin up in my room.  We’ll come fetch you when we’re all ready and rearing to go, make a very minimal amount of conversation, and then hop into bed while you sit outside the door and magic-up my bedroom, while we use our allotted fifteen minutes to achieve the perfect simultaneous orgasm.  There will also be an unconscious Penny-body laying on my floor while we do that, but we’ll have covered him up with a sheet or something to avoid ruining the mood. And then our Penny will pop into said body, I’ll give Q a quick postcoital cuddle, and the day will be saved. Is that everything?”

Quentin’s face feels so hot he thinks it might fall off.  He has definitely lost the ability to speak. Having it all laid out like that did nothing to make things feel less awkward. 

“Uh,” says Julia, as delicately as she can while she looks about equal mixtures of amused and mortified. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“You’re not going to be able to, like — hear us in there, are you?” Quentin suddenly asks, regaining the ability to speak through a sudden rush of horror.

“I’ll be behind a closed door,” Jules says.  “And I’ll, um, plug my ears.”

That’s not a total no.  Fucking hell. This is absolutely going to be the weirdest sex of Quentin’s life. 

“Oh, fucking — shall we just get this over with?” Quentin finally suggests. The quicker it’s done, the quicker he never has to plan out his sex life in detail with people who aren’t actually a part of it ever again.  “El, can you go get the others, and make sure Penny’s ready? Me and Julia can set up the ritual stuff if your room.”

“Of course, darling,” Eliot says, the endearment definitely a joke, but also a joke in a way that rolls far too easily off his tongue.  “I’ll be back ASAP for some light groping.”

Still seeming rather pleased with himself, he finishes his cocktail and heads upstairs to where everyone else is hanging out with the new Penny-body.  Quentin closes his eyes for a moment, trying to calm down the unrelenting flush on his face, before turning back to Julia. 

“Er.  So.” His voice comes out more awkward than it ever has in his life, which is saying something.

“So,” she agrees, though she’s grinning at him now. “I’ll grab the supplies, if you lead the way to Eliot’s room.  You’re apparently more familiar with it than me.”

Feeling a bit like some virginial bride in a medieval novel partaking in the preparation of his own marriage bed, Quentin groans, but leads her up the stairs once she’s done bundling up a suspicious arrangement of objects they’ll need for the ritual aspect of this whole debacle.  He can sense it already — he was hoping the awkwardness would put her off, but Julia is going to turn this into a  _ conversation _ .

Conversation is exactly what he’s been trying to avoid.  She knows him entirely too well for it to not go disastrously.  

 

* * *

 

Julia has never been inside Eliot Waugh’s bedroom before, but as soon as she steps foot in there, she can instantly tell it’s very  _ him.   _ It carries the same sort of aesthetic as the rest of the Physical Kids’ Cottage –– a little Victorian, a little roaring 20s, a lot decadent –– to the point where it almost seems like he’s modelled himself around this house rather than the house happening to match him.  He’s got more books than she’d expect, although they all seem to be non-fiction, and a lot of mildly provocative but very high-concept art on the walls.

There is also, Julia notices, one of Quentin’s t-shirts strewn messily over a leather-backed chair, cutting up the classy aesthetic of the room with its faded  _ Star Wars  _ logo.

Fucking hell.  She can’t believe she didn’t know this before today.

She’s been –– trying not to let the  _ Quentin and Eliot are fucking  _ realisation _ ,  _ or even the  _ Quentin likes fucking guys  _ realisation, take over this day too much.  They’ve got bigger things to worry about, after all, what with literally bringing someone back from the almost-dead and all.

But she can’t help it: she’s surprised.

Not necessarily by the Eliot of it all.  She’d always seen Q and Eliot’s friendship as oddly intimate, but then she’d seen Eliot’s friendship with Margo, too — more intimate still, and  _ they _ definitely weren’t romantically involved.  So she’d figured it was just an Eliot thing; the magnetic way he drew his small circle of favourite people to him, the intimate way he touched people he cared about, the way he delighted in taking care of his little circle of friends.

Quentin, who’d always been starved for touch and undivided attention and lavished care, was bound to eat that sort of thing up.  Especially after they got back from the mosaic together, she’d figured they’d just gotten  _ close.   _ She’d been happy for Quentin, that he’d made such a close friend, but she hadn’t thought it was anything more than that.

And she’s not necessarily surprised by the Quentin-likes-guys of it all, either.  She’d always wondered a little about him –– just something in the vibe he gave off, something in the way he’d sometimes look at James, at her other boyfriends in high school too, like he wasn’t sure which one of them he was supposed to be jealous of.  And, of course, she loves him regardless. She just didn’t expect  _ him  _ to have gotten his shit together enough to have a big sexuality realisation without telling her about it.

He’s sort of told her about it now, but only because he  _ had  _ to tell everyone.  And like heck if Julia’s gonna let him get off that easy.  She’s been his best friend since the most important thing they had to do with their lives was figure out what colour of crayon smelled best, and he’s heard about  _ every  _ single one of her romantic triumphs and fumbles.

She wants some reciprocity, damnit.

“ _ So,”  _ she says, meaningful as anything, as she watches the overly familiar way Quentin moves around Eliot’s room.  She can see the moment Quentin realises what conversation they’re about to have, because his entire posture changes, back carefully to her.  He doesn’t look too tense, though, and he doesn’t try to flee the situation, so she feels okay to push a little, turning cheeky. “Don’t think I’m just gonna let this go just because we’ve got bigger things on our plate right now.   _ Eliot,  _ Q?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Quentin says, which really isn’t as descriptive as Julia would like.  He sort of half-glances at her over his shoulder, and then busies himself with taking some large candles out of a drawer in Eliot’s bureau.  “I mean, like El said, it just sort of happened at the mosaic. I know I told you about most of the two years there, I just –– left out a few details?  But seriously, we were stuck in basically a middle-ages shack, with just each other and only one very boring task to keep us entertained. Sex was like, uh, a really good way to pass the time, so.”

“You don’t have sex with someone  _ just  _ to pass the time,” Julia objects.  She lays a blanket down in the largest expanse of blank floor she can find –– a rather difficult task when Eliot has such an apparent commitment to filling every possible inch of space with ornate wooden furniture, but she manages to make a space big enough to put the Penny-body in, at least.  “At least  _ you  _ don’t, Q.  And, I mean, that’s not even the biggest news about it.  You did notice he has a penis, right?”

She’s teasing, and Quentin knows that –– being slightly dickish to each other is a huge and important part of their friendship –– so she’s already kind of grinning as he turns back around to her properly, rolling his eyes.

“Actually no, I had no idea.  Does this mean they’re going to take away my Certified Heterosexual card?”

“Looks like it, Q.  Sorry to be the one to break the news.”

“However will I go on,” Quentin says, moving towards where she’s laid out the blanket with his arm full of candles and crouching down to set a few of them up.  Once they’re crouched just a few inches apart, he finally sighs and says, “Ugh,  _ fine,  _ okay, let’s get this over with.  I guess I owe you a big best friend conversation or something?”

“I mean, you don’t  _ owe  _ me anything, but I’m definitely  _ curious  _ about a whole lot if you want to talk about it.”

Curious is an understatement –– she’s nearly bursting with it.  Quentin so rarely gets involved with people, and even more rarely does it seem like it’s going remotely well when he does.  She wants him to be happy, and she wants him to be treated well, and she wants to get over her own surprise about this whole situation by talking it out with him, too.  

“Okay, 10th grade sleepover rules.  You have five questions, I have to answer honestly, but I get one veto if it’s too much.  And then you owe me a pizza.”

“The original rules were a pizza  _ and  _ a diet coke.  You’re going soft on me, Q.”  Quentin looks at her and rolls his eyes so hard they seem like they might fall out of his head.  Julia huffs, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Oh,  _ fine.   _ How’s the sex?”

“I mean, you have  _ met  _ Eliot, right?  It’s mindblowing.  Obviously. He’s incapable of being bad at sex.”

She’s given him a softball question first, something he can answer with a bit of sass, to ease him into it.  As Quentin produces one of Eliot’s lighters to light the candles, Julia sits on her knees beside him and asks, “Did you freak out, when you realised you were into him?  I mean, if that’s when you realised you were into guys at all?”

There are a few moments of silence, where it’s just their breathing and the sound of the lighter as Quentin fidgets with it, clicking the cap back and forth with his thumb.

“I didn’t freak out, no.  It seemed weirdly, just, like, uh, completely natural, at the time?  And the whole  _ he’s a guy  _ thing was just –– well, yeah, that was my first time realising that.  I don’t think that even processed at first, either. But it wasn’t, like, a freak out.  It made more sense than most of the other stuff in my fucking anxious brain half the time, so I just kind of went with it.”

There’s something in his tone, though.  Something which sort of makes Julia want to abandon the five-questions and push, just a little.  

“But that’s not all?” she prompts, deliberately focusing on setting up the little row of crystals on the summoning altar in front of them so that Quentin won’t feel like he needs to meet her eyes.  He always talks better about serious things when you give him some breathing room with it.

“I didn’t,” says Quentin, and the sentence cuts off in the middle.  He makes a frustrated noise, rakes a hand through his hair, and then a wry little smile makes its way onto his lips, like he can’t quite believe he’s saying this: “I just didn’t  _ expect  _ it, really.  Not that I’d, like,  _ never  _ looked at a guy.  But it was only ever –– passing.  It never really felt like an idea that, like, had legs?  And I was used to being with girls. I liked it, like, a lot.  So you, you know, you get all these  _ ideas,  _ about what your type is.  Shorter, and curves, and whatever, these things you’re really used to enjoying.  And then it’s suddenly ––”

“Go on,” she says, softly, when it becomes clear the wheel of Quentin’s brain has overturned, stuck his tongue in place.  Sometimes the words come out of him so difficultly, even in the midst of a great rambling spiel, that he needs a little nudge.

“He’s tall,” Quentin blurts out, and then sort of blinks, like even he’s surprised that he just said that.  “It’s not that I’m confused by finding him hot or anything. I know I find him hot, I always have. It doesn’t bother me that he’s a guy and it doesn’t even bother me that I guess I’m not really defined the same way I always thought I was.  But it’s just –– he’s taller than me. And I  _ really _ like it.”   _ Now  _ they’re getting somewhere; his cheeks have gone bright red.  “I kind of always figured that even if I was attracted to guys, it would be the same way as I’m attracted to girls.  But it’s sort of, like, not. I don’t know. I didn’t expect it to be different. And it’s no less intense. It’s just –– sometimes, I remember how different it is, and then it still feels sort of brand new.”

“Is it good, with him, though?” Julia checks.

She’s never known Eliot all that well, honestly; their paths just haven’t crossed much amidst all the craziness of the last couple years.  But she knows  _ enough  _ about him.  She knows he’s been a bit of a mess, which she can relate to, and that he’s also got a very big heart, which she gets, too.  And most of all, she remembers being traumatised and spiralling and stuck crying on a couch, and Eliot being the one to pull her off it.  Even when he hated her, and rightfully so.

It’s that part of him, she thinks, that she can see most with Quentin. The part that takes care of people.

“Yeah,” Quentin says, quiet, as he crouches down on the floor to light the candle beside the Penny-body.  “It’s, uh –– I mean, it’s all just casual. But yes, it’s good with him.”

_ Casual my ass _ , Julia thinks, looking at Quentin’s face, hopeless little serial romantic that he is.  But she’s kind enough not to say it. Quentin usually needs help coming to any sort of sensible decision about his own emotions, but she likes to let him get  _ most  _ of the way there before she meddles.

“Well, that’s everything,” she finally says, as she sets down a tiny metal bowl filled with blood, Penny’s blood type, helpfully donated by a blood bank.  It’s the centre point of the ritual, the thing that will link his spirit to his new body; so much, she thinks comes down to blood. Dusting off her hands, Julia stands up, and gives Quentin one last cheeky smile.  “Have fun, Q.”

Quentin rolls his eyes.  “Oh, yeah, I’m sure this’ll be the sexiest experience of my life, fucking while you hover right outside and an unconscious Penny-body lays next to a bowl of blood on the floor.  Didn’t you know that’s my biggest kink?”

She laughs, tugs on a loose strand of his hair and watches him wrinkle his nose.  

“Wow, all these years of friendship and I still learn new things about you every day, Q.”  Julia gives one last glance around to make sure the room looks perfect, and then fixes him with a slightly more serious look.  “Now, remember, I can probably only do the magic conduit thing for fifteen minutes or so, so you’re gonna have to be –– quick. You might wanna make sure you’re  _ really  _ warmed up before we start, is all I’m saying.  And ready to take a dick in the ass.”

“Oh –– Julia!” he protests, his cheeks going just the tiniest bit pink.  Quentin’s not  _ always  _ awkward at talking about his sex life if it’s vaguer than this, but at heart she knows he’s still eternally the 16 year old who went bright red and tried to dive behind a desk so quickly that he gave himself a concussion when she asked him how guys liked being jerked off.  “Yes, fine, okay, thanks for the sex tips, I promise I’ve got it from here.”

 

* * *

 

Eliot and Margo carry the empty new Penny-body into the room between them, and deposit it rather awkwardly on the floor, around the altar Quentin and Julia have set up.  Quentin watches as they arrange its limbs to a slightly more comfortable looking position, although he’s not sure why it matters, when there’s not currently a  _ person  _ inside there.  They try putting a sheet over it, but that just makes it look like a  _ dead  _ body, so Quentin makes them take it back off again.  Better to feel like you’re maybe fucking in a room with your most annoying friend than in a room with their  _ corpse. _

When they’re done with that, Margo gives Quentin a ridiculously flirty wink, and saunters out of the room.  “Enjoy yourself, boys. Try not to bust a nut too soon and ruin the entire spell, or anything.”

As if  _ that’s  _ not gonna give Quentin anxiety about the process.

“We’ll, uh, I guess just come and grab you when we’re –– ready,” Quentin says to Julia, who’s still there.  She looks like she doesn’t know what the etiquette is here any more than Quentin does, but Eliot is the antithesis of both of them, cheerfully slinging an arm around Quentin’s shoulder and waggling his fingers at Julia.

These are the highest spirits Quentin has seen Eliot in for ages.  He really is at his happiest when something slightly salacious is going on.

Julia backs awkwardly out of the door, closing it behind her with a little wave, and then it’s just them.

“Right,” says Quentin, sitting down on the bed.  “Ready for the least sexy sex of your life?”

“I resent the implication that I could ever do anything remotely un-sexy,” Eliot says.  He puts a dramatically affected hand to his chest, and Quentin rolls his eyes. “Now, shall I take your clothes off, or do you want to give a little striptease to get me going?”

“You’re such a shit,” Quentin complains, laughing despite himself as he yanks his T-shirt over his head.  Eliot gives a dumb little shoulder shimmy while Quentin undoes his jeans and pushes them down too.  Even sat naked on Eliot Waugh’s bed, his dick has never been softer. 

He’s a little worried this is gonna take a long time to get going. The only time sex-with-Eliot has ever failed to turn Quentin on was during the whole depression monster thing, which he counts as exceedingly special circumstances, but.  Right now he just can’t stop thinking about the fact that there is essentially a Penny shaped mannequin with a heartbeat laying on the floor across the room, and an entire house full of people downstairs who know what they’re doing up here and are  _ waiting _ on them, and it’s all just so much too awkward.

Except.  Well. Then Eliot, still fully dressed apart from the few top buttons undone on his dress shirt, spreads his legs wide and crawls into Quentin’s lap, straddling him, drawing him into a kiss.  

Which does help Quentin forget about  _ some  _ of those things.

 

* * *

 

This day, Eliot thinks, has been a very,  _ very  _ strange one.  

He did not wake up this morning anticipating that they’d be reanimating the consciousness of one of their sort-of-dead friends.  He  _ especially  _ didn’t wake up thinking he’d be largely responsible for that by way of his sex life, either.

Luckily, Eliot is good at taking things like this in stride.  In a world of magic and mayhem, you’re better off the faster you learn that nothing is ever going to make sense or be predictable.

Actually, once he’s come around to it, the idea is rather exciting.  It’s good to get a bit of variety into your sex life, he thinks, keep it interesting.  It’s slightly titillating to have so much pressure resting on Eliot’s ability to give a good orgasm; if he focuses on that, he’s going to enjoy this whole thing, honestly.

(And what he’s just trying so desperately not to actually think about is Quentin announcing it –– that he and Eliot could do this, that he was  _ so  _ confident they were sexually compatible enough to pull it off –– so  _ casually,  _ really, considering, in front of  _ all _ their friends –– and what that meant, when Q had been the one who suggested keeping it secret in the first place –– and whether it really was just because he wasn’t thinking, in the moment, about how he could have taken Julia aside  _ privately  _ and made the suggestion, because he was so keen to save Penny’s life –– or maybe whether the novelty of sneaking around has simply worn off and Quentin is soon going to tire of their arrangement altogether –– no, Eliot isn’t thinking about any of that.)

_ So,  _ Eliot thinks to himself, as his hands run up and down Quentin Coldwater’s naked body,  _ I just need to stay on task here. _

Although they’re under a bit of a time pressure, as in  _ the sooner the better since we don’t know how long we can just leave that body sitting around,  _ Eliot indulges himself with several long minutes of heady kissing before he gets started on anything else.  He was absolutely joking when he suggested skipping the foreplay, earlier.  Eliot’s not  _ above  _ the odd quickie, but he prides himself on bringing a certain amount of art to sex, and just shoving his fingers in Quentin’s ass right now isn’t going to live up to his own standards.

Quentin, for his part, seems happy to be kissed –– is  _ always  _ happy to be kissed, because he was hand-plucked out of one of Eliot’s wet dreams about the perfect man, presumably.  His strong hands tug at the hem of Eliot’s shirt until it comes untucked from his pants, and they can slide inside to paw at Eliot’s skin.

Hmm.  That feels nice.  For a moment, Eliot can almost forget why they’re doing this.

“Admittedly, I didn’t  _ quite  _ think this was the reason I’d next have you in my bed,” Eliot says idly, mostly just to say anything at all, as they pull apart to catch their breath and he starts pushing Quentin back onto the bed.  Quentin’s eyes blink up at him, all big and damp at the lashes already, and his cute dumb little nose wrinkles.

“God, El, don’t remind me.”  Like he can’t help it, Quentin’s head turns to the side, eyes flicking to the space where the new Penny-body is laying around.  “All I’m gonna be thinking about the whole time is that thing watching us!”

Eliot has it on good authority that, usually, Quentin loses all sense of his surroundings when Eliot’s fucking him, can’t even tell you where he is or what day it is if you happen to quiz him in the middle –– but generously elects not to mention that right now.  He knows this sort of thing comes less naturally to Quentin, so eternally nervous even about things which are supposed to be enjoyable, than it does to Eliot, who intentionally raised himself into a life of depravity and has fucked in front of plenty of wide-awake spectators before, however odd the circumstances.

“It’s just a magical object, really, right now,” he says, casual, trying to soothe Quentin’s anxieties.   “It’s not like it’s Penny-but-asleep on the floor while we fuck; there’s never been any consciousness inside that thing, yet.”

“It  _ looks _ like Penny-but-asleep on the floor while we fuck, though."

“Oh, come on, you two were first year roomies, it can’t be the  _ first _ time that’s happened.”  At Quentin’s horrified look, Eliot prods, “You must have done it at least a few times.  Jerked off under your covers while Penny was asleep across the room?”

“I — Eliot, no!  That’s creepy and gross.”

Quentin looks embarrassed by the thought, but Eliot just shrugs. He’d been that terrible roommate in freshman year of undergrad who constantly brought guys back to fuck when his roommate was asleep, let alone just jerked off.  Riding the fresh high of freedom from his family and having a place he  _ could _ bring guys back to without getting disowned for the first time in his life, nothing else had seemed to matter much.

“I’ve done it,” he tells Quentin lightly, figuring he’ll save the more salacious details for another time, when he can properly delight in Q’s reactions to them.

“Well, of course  _ you _ have.”  Quentin seems rather wry as he says that, though he’s still red-cheeked.  “You’re  _ you _ .  And anyway, I bet your roommate wasn’t a psychic who was already reading all your thoughts and incepting — incepting your fucking sex dreams. I really didn’t need to push my luck.”

“Incepting your sex dreams?”  Eliot breaks into a grin. “Ooh la la.  I didn’t know you and Penny had such a kinky history.  Did he ever see one about me?”

“Clearly not, or he wouldn’t have been so surprised to find out I like dick,” Quentin fires back, before pausing for a second.  While Eliot strokes a finger up and down the side of his neck, Quentin adds more slowly, “It was like, the start of first year, anyway.  I wasn’t thinking about you like that yet.”

“Mmm,  _ yet _ ?  Does that mean you have sex dreams about me  _ now _ ?”  Quentin immediately clamps his lips tight shut.  Eliot lets out a delighted laugh. “Baby Q, you’ve been holding out on me!  I thought I was fucking you too good for you to have  _ any _ leftover sexual energy.  Come on, tell me all the naughty little things your subconscious has been dreaming up about Daddy.”

“Okay, please don’t call yourself _Daddy_ in bed, I have told you how gross that is so many times.”  Quentin’s whole face is splotchy red with embarrassment. It’s adorable.  Eliot knows there’s a human life on the line here and all, but honestly, this is the most fun he’s had in ages.  “And do I need to remind you this maybe isn’t the best time? Penny will find a way to become corporeal  _ just  _ to kill us if we somehow take too long over this and his new body stops working.  Just finger me already.”

With that, Quentin flops backwards onto the bed, his knees falling open. Eliot would like to needle him a bit more, but Quentin has a point — he’d rather hear about Q’s wet dreams when half their friends aren’t waiting for them downstairs anyway.  Besides, how is he supposed to resist a stark naked Quentin Coldwater spreading his legs on top of Eliot’s embroidered silk bedspread?

He’s not.  

So Eliot goes to him, goes over him, leans his head down and opens Quentin’s mouth with his tongue, licks into him; grabs Quentin’s hips and tugs them up against Eliot’s body, manhandling him around until Quentin’s whole body is as flushed hot as his face.  And when Quentin’s cock starts to perk up under his attentions, Eliot slides off the bed to kneel on the floor instead, laving his tongue across the head of it before sucking Q right into his mouth.

He decides, while he’s still got enough of his faculties left to think about such things, that he needs to treat foreplay a bit more like a science than his usual art, today.

Eliot’s never _actively_ tried to get himself and Quentin to orgasm simultaneously before, but it’s happened by chance enough times that he has an idea what to do.  He knows he needs to work Quentin up just enough that he _wants_ to come, but not quite so much that he’s on the brink, because then Q won’t be able to hold it back.  Eliot, on the other hand, can happily go right to the very edge and keep himself there, so he starts rubbing the flat of his palm over his own dick through his pants at the same time as sinking down on Quentin’s cock.

Eliot considers himself a bit of a master of blowjobs, but to his horror, Quentin prefers ‘sloppy and simple’ to any of Eliot’s actual fancy tricks.  Sometimes El teases him for ages with that, but today, once again, isn’t the time. So he goes the way Quentin likes it best –– mouth wet, spit dripping down Quentin’s cock as Eliot sets a fast and steady pace, bobbing up and down with his jaw open wide, even before Quentin’s fully hard.

Not that it takes long for him to get hard when Eliot’s doing that.

“You really shouldn’t be allowed to be so good at that,” Quentin says, his voice higher than normal, sticking in his throat in a way that makes it sound like he really doesn’t even know what he’s saying.  His fingers are winding into Eliot’s hair, not tugging at him but just resting there, but his hips have started trying to twitch off the bed.

Feeling satisfied with his progress and trying to remind himself that the point is  _ not  _ to get Quentin off right now, Eliot pulls off with an obscenely wet noise.

“I have never once heard you complain about my incredible talents in fellatio and I don’t know why you’re doing it now,” El says, as he rubs at the side of his jaw a little.  Quentin gives him a look that is just –– Eliot feels weird calling it  _ fond, _ but that’s how it looks, so fond, and something else too.  Maybe exasperated, or maybe just  _ I have an erection right now.   _ Quentin, whose face is so expressive at every single turn of his life, obviously has a look for that.

“I’m not  _ complaining  _ now, I’m just ––”

He trails off.  Eliot climbs up from the floor, pushes Quentin flat on his back on the bed.

“Just what?” he prompts, as he fishes the good lube out of his bedside drawer.

“Just, I don’t know, it’s weird to be enjoying it so much when we’re really just doing a  _ ritual.” _

“It’s a sex ritual, Q.  The whole point is that we enjoy it.  The more you enjoy it, the better the magic works.”

Quentin’s eyebrows furrow, like he hadn’t thought of it that way yet, and he opens his mouth silently for a moment, tongue darting at the edges of his pink lips.  Fuck, Eliot wants to kiss him again. Forces himself to stay on track, and opens the lube.

“Well, we’re not  _ technically  _ at the ritual bit yet, so we should probably still be being practical right now,” Quentin eventually says.  Eliot raises an eyebrow. Pushes Q’s knees open, and watches how Quentin’s blush extends down his chest. How his cock is still standing rigid against his stomach.

“Darling, there’s nothing  _ practical  _ about sex.  Now, until I can get to the part where I  _ properly  _ ravage you, can you tell that brain of yours to be quiet, and just enjoy yourself?  It’s not every day I get to do sex magic, anymore, and I’d like to savour it.”

“Ugh, you’re so weird, Eliot,” Quentin says, but his voice is doing the  _ fond  _ thing that his face was doing a minute ago.

Eliot thinks his own cheeks might be going a little bit pink now, too.  He pushes that thought away and ducks his head down to plant open-mouthed kisses against the insides of Quentin’s thighs, the crook of his knee, the groove where his leg meets his groin.

Then he finally goes for it, and presses a finger into Quentin’s asshole.

“ _ Oh,”  _ says Quentin immediately, and then shuts up.

If the whole ‘questing magician/occasional king of a fantasy land’ thing doesn’t work out, Eliot often thinks, Quentin could have a professional career in getting fingered.

He does it better than anyone Eliot’s ever met, so hot and soft inside, always going perfectly relaxed and pliant the second Eliot’s fingers dance anywhere near the cleft of his ass.  The first few times they did this, back in the early days at the mosaic, he’d needed a bit more easing into it of course — it’s always like that the first time you take anything up the ass, an unnatural sensation no matter how badly you think you want it.  Quentin had adjusted so _quick_ , though, and now he always seems like he was simply made for it.

Eliot pushes a second finger inside him, and Quentin just wriggles down onto it right away, letting out a heavy breath and mumbling something incomprehesible above Eliot’s head.  They don’t  _ always _ do it this way around, because Eliot gets in the mood to be fucked now and then too, but half the time that he’s in those moods he does end up just fucking Quentin anyway, solely because it seems a shame to ever waste Quentin’s ridiculous talent for having things up his ass.

It really is a very, very good thing Quentin didn’t end up being actually straight, Eliot thinks slightly hysterically, as he pushes a third wet finger into the tight ring of Quentin’s asshole and listens to the needy gasp Q lets out above his head.

“Okay, yeah, that’s —“ Quentin says, his voice all throaty and tense.  “— that’s good, that feels good, I’m ready now, fuck me.”

“I’ve got to go and get Julia before I do that,” Eliot reminds him.  He’s pretty sure Quentin has now forgotten about the entire reason they’re doing this, which Eliot frankly takes as a compliment.  “I fully believe you’re ready for my dick, but I still want to get you a little closer to coming before we officially get this show on the road, since we’re going to be under a time limit and all.”

“You’re putting a lot of thought into this time limit when I’m pretty sure it’s never going to be a problem,” Quentin says, with a giddy little laugh.  Eliot kisses Quentin’s bellybutton, then the head of his cock. “I could come in fifteen minutes, like, anytime you touch me. I could come in two seconds right now.”

“Don’t stroke my ego too much, darling, or this really will be over fast,” Eliot jokes, although he does never mind the reminders that Quentin truly finds him attractive, truly enjoys what they do together so much. 

“How about I stroke something else,” Quentin suggests, in the way he does when he’s trying to sound sexy and just ends up silly instead, but — okay, it works, on Eliot.

He hooks his fingers inside Quentin one last time before pulling them out and crawling up his body, Eliot still dressed where Q is completely naked, and kisses him, open mouthed and frantic, as Quentin works a palm over Eliot’s crotch through his pants, driving him crazy with the not-quite-enough friction until he’s hard enough, with Quentin’s thighs spread either side of his hips, that it feels unbearable to not just sink into Q right there and then and have him for hours.  

Fuck, how Eliot wants to do that. He forces himself instead to pull away with a wet gasp.  

“You, you stay there ––  _ exactly  _ like that,” Eliot instructs him, while Quentin lays there all flushed and squirmy and trying desperately to catch his breath.  Eliot’s shirt is tugged askew from where Quentin had been shoving his hands inside it, but considering Q’s total nudity, he’s the more presentable of the two of them to leave the room right now.  “I’m going to go grab Julia. I’ll be right –– right back.”

Eliot darts out of the room, stumbling just a little over his feet in the doorway and frantically righting himself before anyone can see, and wondering why on earth Quentin manages to have such a more potent effect on him than being turned on with any  _ other  _ guy would.  Eliot’s taken exams with erections before.  He’s stopped in the middle of sex because of insane Fillorian emergencies which needed his vital royal input, and it’s been fine.  But fifteen minutes of fingering Quentin Coldwater, not even touching his  _ own  _ cock, and Eliot feels half-drunk, and like he might die if he doesn’t get back to his room soon.

This is either some sort of symptom of  _ love,  _ Eliot thinks with a shudder as he makes his way down the corridor, or someone’s put a particularly inventive sort of curse on him.

“I’ll skip the saucy details and just say we’re ready for you,” he says to Julia, as he finally sticks his head around the door to the room she’s been using in the cottage lately, at the other end of the hall.  She’s sat on her bed with a book, but immediately looks up.

She looks –– not embarrassed, but certainly like she’s trying to figure out how she can respond with the maximum amount of delicacy.  Eliot rolls his eyes.

“Yes, yes, it’s all very exciting, we’re all sixteen and sex makes us giggle, come on.  There’s a very grumpy traveller waiting for us in another dimension, apparently, and more importantly a boy in my bed.”

“Right,” Julia says, and there’s something a little playful behind her eyes as she picks herself off the bed, smiling at him.  She gestures for Eliot to go first, which is probably more decent, considering the rather obvious situation he’s got going on in his expensive pants right now.  “So, you might be able to feel it when I flood the room with magic, but count down from ten or something when you get back in the room just in case, and then, um, start.  And–– well, you remember what you need to do. So I guess that’s it.”

She seems anxious, handing off this last and vital step of the process to them, which the control-freak inside Eliot can certainly relate to.

“It’s like a relay race,” Eliot says, as they reach his bedroom door together.  “You’ve done the incredibly difficult and skilled work of setting up the entire marathon, and now me and Q are going to carry the baton over the finish line.  With our dicks.”

“You have a real talent for metaphor, Eliot,” Julia says dryly.  Eliot grins at her.

It should probably be weird that he’s  _ pretty  _ sure this is the first one-on-one conversation he’s had with Julia since that time he dragged her off her couch to get back out into the world after her assault, back when he still thought he was supposed to hate her.  But, well. It wouldn’t be Eliot’s life if all his relationships weren’t totally weird, so.

“See you when it’s over, then,” he says, and opens the door a crack to slip back in side, while Julia averts her eyes so she won’t accidentally catch a glimpse of Quentin.

It’s a good idea, Eliot thinks, as he closes the door quickly behind himself and hears the sound of Julia sitting down on the other side, smacking her palms to rest against the wood.  Quentin is still laid out where Eliot left him, and he looks like absolute  _ porn,  _ messy and flushed and naked with his ass on show.  It’s probably not something his best friend should ever see –– certainly not unless she’s an  _ Eliot-and-Margo  _ sort of best friend, at least.

“Right, I think we’re on the clock,” Eliot says, as he finally strips out of his shirt.  Quentin props himself up on his elbows on the bed, unabashedly staring as Eliot pushes his pants down, too.

“Are you sure?  I thought we’d be able to tell when ––”

_ Fwoomph.   _ The moment the air floods with magic is palpable; sensational, in the purest meaning of the word.  It touches every one of his senses. He can feel it prickling at his skin, he can  _ taste  _ it on the back of his tongue.  It feels like the first moment he and Quentin set foot in Fillory-of-the-past, all over again, and Eliot can’t help but remember the way they’d fallen together with such awe when they realised, laughing and whooping and clutching at each other, long before their bodies were drawn together like magnets the way they are now.

This is just like Julia described, though.  Magic, but no power, and certainly nothing he could use to cast a spell of his own.

Eliot can  _ feel  _ the magic, the way it breathes against his skin, the way the air feels a little lighter around their heads.  But he can’t grab hold of it. Like there’s no weight behind it –– it’s lacking a body.

Just like Penny, Eliot thinks, and suddenly remembers why he’s here.  He looks at Quentin, who has gone all wide-eyed and dazed and thrilled by the feeling of magic around him as well, his fingertips stretching into the air like he thinks he’ll be able to touch it.  The awe in his eyes is honestly incredibly hot.

And fuck, Eliot’s still extremely hard.

“Fifteen minutes,” Eliot reminds him, when it seems like Quentin is getting so absorbed in the feeling of magic that he’s forgotten the rest of the universe, “Give or take.”

“What –– oh,  _ oh,  _ right.  Fuck, get over here, El.”

And  _ that  _ is a command Eliot’s happy to oblige.

The wind’s gone out of both their sails a tiny bit in the time it took Eliot to go fetch Julia, but it’s not hard to get the mood back.  Eliot climbs on top of Quentin, feeling the tense lines of Quentin’s body, the way Quentin immediately grabs for him, hands fitting around Eliot’s biceps.  As always, the first touch of Quentin against Eliot’s bare skin feels like pure electricity.

Something crackles between them.  Eliot doesn’t know if it’s magic or just pure chemistry.  Some scientific biological reaction which means that staring down into Quentin’s eyes can make his  _ chest  _ hurt, can make his skin feel hotter than a fever, can make him lose his breath, make his stomach flip, make it feel like lightning is running up and down his spine.

It’s so intense, and they’re not even fucking yet.  It’s so –– Eliot doesn’t even know.  So  _ much.   _

So much, of everything.  So hot. And he’s full of so much love.  And pain, too; it hurts, how terrified he is of this, how much he wants things he can’t have, wants things he’s not sure he’d be able to let himself chase even if he could have them.

_ Fuck.   _ It’s not always like this.  Most of the time Eliot really doesn’t let the messier side of his emotions interfere with his sex life with Quentin.  But. Right now. It’s like it’s all just dialled up to eleven.

It must be because of the magic.

“As hot as it is when you look at me like that,” Quentin says –– voice hushed, must be worried about Julia outside the door –– and slides his strong hands up the curve of Eliot’s biceps to his shoulders, brushing the sensitive skin of Eliot’s neck, “We have, like, ten minutes, and your dick is  _ right  _ by my ass, so I kind of think we could get on with it.”

“Well, when you put as romantically as  _ that,  _ how could I resist,” Eliot snarks, but he takes a deep breath to shove down all the mess in his heart and presses down the last inch, kisses Quentin, kisses him, kisses him.

It’s filthy and Eliot’s favourite type of kissing, fuck, he could just live in Quentin’s mouth like this, the slide of their lips together, the press of Quentin’s tongue, the wet, obscene  _ noises  _ as they chase each other.  Eliot makes the most of the brief time, licking as far into Quentin’s mouth as he can get and rooting a hand tight in Quentin’s hair just the way that always makes Quentin half-choke in the back of this throat, biting at Quentin’s jaw.  Leaving marks.

Fuck, it, now, Eliot thinks, half mad with desire; all their friends know, now.  Eliot can leave bruises all down Quentin's throat and nobody's going to ask about it.  

Then, it’s just a few last presses of his fingers, and it’s him grabbing Q’s strong thigh in his free hand and hitching it up over his waist and Quentin  _ gasping  _ and Eliot closing his eyes because it’s almost too much already, every part of him is boiling hot, and everything else in the world has dropped away now, he’s forgotten the ritual and their friends and all the quests, it’s just  _ this,  _ and Eliot finally, finally pushes forward, feels a jolt of warm pleasure that rushes up his whole body, sets his toes tingling and makes him suck his bottom lip hard into his mouth just for somewhere for the  _ tension  _ to go, and ––

Then, he’s finally inside Quentin, just pressed up in there as far as he’ll go, and the room around them is sweltering, and the hairs on Eliot’s arms are standing on end, and Quentin is a wriggling white-hot vice underneath him, and Eliot could almost burst right then.

“Happy, now?” Eliot asks, though his voice comes out far hoarser than he’d planned, far less of the cool he’s trying to project.

Luckily, Quentin’s in no position to be judging cool right now.  His eyes are scrunched closed and his jaw is open, slack, the point of his wet-pink tongue pressed out against his lips.  His hands are still clutching at Eliot’s shoulders, fingertips brushing his collarbones, but his grip has gone loose.

“Uh-huh,” he says, voice all thick with feeling, and drags Eliot closer by the neck to kiss him again.

Q has always been simultaneously high strung and already sort of wrecked.  Eliot thought it the very first time they met: just a sunny afternoon like any other, bored on the Brakebills lawn with a cigarette waiting to fulfil the stupid student ambassador role which had been assigned to him as a punishment, and then a cute little nobody boy had been stumbling up the lawn, and before he’d even dropped Quentin off at his exam Eliot had thought: Quentin Coldwater has the air of someone who doesn’t have the first clue what he wants, but  _ really _ wants it. 

Of course, Eliot is slightly rethinking that last part lately.  Quentin knows when he wants some things. When he kissed Eliot for the very first time at the mosaic, that was all confidence in his own desires.  And now. Now, he seems to know exactly what he wants, as he spreads his legs and presses his heels into the backs of Eliot’s thighs, tilts his chin up to bite Eliot’s neck, suck hard at the delicate skin under his collarbones.

Eliot doesn’t know what this boy is doing to him, but he never wants it to stop. 

“Gonna fuck you now,” he informs Quentin, and does that, one hand braced on the bed and the other still tugging tight at Quentin’s hair on the back of his head, angling him into filthy kisses when they can manage it, even as their mouths slip and slide past each other while Eliot fucks him  _ fast,  _ hard, frantic, chasing everything he’s ever felt into Quentin’s body, chasing bliss into the hot tight cling of him, while Quentin makes throaty delicious helpless noises and grinds his hips down to meet Eliot’s thrusts, Q’s aching-hard cock caught between their stomachs.  “F- _ fuck.   _ Is that good, Q?  Is that ––  _ ah,  _ fuck –– mm, is it good for you like this?  Move me if you wanna, if you –– if you need it different, oh, fuck, Q, you feel so good, this is so fucking good.”

He’s barely even aware of what he’s saying, just has this desperate need to  _ make it good for Quentin,  _ to make sure Quentin’s as out-of-his-mind hot as Eliot is, to make sure he’s doing everything, all of this, for Q –– because Eliot used to only  _ ever  _ really care about his own pleasure, at the end of the day, even if he’d always get his partners off it wasn’t really because he desperately  _ wanted  _ to, but all of that’s different with Quentin.  

Quentin is the first person who has  _ ever  _ made Eliot feel like his own pleasure is secondary, like he’d rather Quentin had eight fucking mindblowing orgasms before Eliot even has one, he just doesn’t  _ care  _ anymore, he just wants to be for Q, all for Q, and the absolute heaven that is fucking into Quentin’s perfect body is only secondary to all the rest of it.

“It’s so good, El, just like this, yeah, yeah,” Quentin tells him, his voice lower than it ever gets, cracking around the words.  His hands slip off Eliot’s shoulders and up around his waist instead, his fingernails scratching down Eliot’s back as the motion of their bodies turns ever more frantic –– and Quentin is throwing his head back on the pillows, eyes closed,  _ groaning  _ –– and Eliot is tugging harder at his hair, biting Quentin’s jaw, fucking him faster faster faster harder harder, feeling like an  _ animal,  _ feeling like he’s going to explode.

“I’m already close,” Eliot gasps, what must be just a couple minutes later, honestly amazed he’s kept it together even  _ this  _ long.  They’re both breathless and damp with sweat and flushed all over their bodies and Eliot can feel  _ everything,  _ and it’s ridiculous it can be this intense, just a quickie for the sake of business, isn’t it?

“Well, good, that’s kind of the point,” Quentin gasps out.  His hands slide against Eliot’s back and come down to grab handfuls Eliot’s ass instead,  _ pulling  _ him deep inside Q’s body.  Eliot’s vision goes white for a moment.

He nearly wants to just pass out right here.

“Jerk yourself off,” he demands, slipping lower and bracing himself on his elbows either side of Quentin’s head.  “Tell me when you’re –– when you’re  _ right  _ at the edge.”

Quentin swallows so loud Eliot can hear it, and removes one hand from El’s ass, shoving it between their sweaty bodies and fisting his own cock.  He doesn’t try and match his own pace to Eliot’s thrusts, just starts jerking off as  _ fast as he can,  _ knuckles brushing Eliot’s stomach in a way that’s somehow even hotter than actually  _ fucking  _ him is.  

Which is –– just ––

Eliot comes down to kiss Quentin again, even if it’s more just their open mouths gasping against each other, and it’s building, building, Eliot can feel it scratching under the surface of his skin, can feel a swell of burning heat washing over his whole body ––

“El, I’m ––” says Quentin, the words catching around a groan and coming out all just like one loud sound, like he’s forgotten how to speak at all.  “El, I’m there, I’m.”

“Don’t come,” Eliot tells him on a gasp, and pushes himself  _ hard  _ into Quentin’s body, slides one hand down to grab at Quentin’s thigh, feeling the tight muscles under his hand as he hitches it higher around his waist.  “Don’t come, not yet, just –– just one more second, one second, Q, don’t come.”

“ _ Eliot ––” _

Quentin’s right hand grabs Eliot’s ass again, pulling him in as tight as he can get, and Quentin’s eyes flit open, lashes damp, and he just  _ looks  _ at Eliot, right like that, all flushed red and sweaty and wild-haired with his big wet mouth open and something  _ desperate  _ in his gaze, something more intense than Eliot knows what to do with, and it’s  _ beautiful,  _ and it’s so much, it’s so much of everything in the world.

Eliot almost says it again.  Like at the mosaic. T he beginning of the _lo-_ is forming on his tongue already, he almost can’t help it.  How can he, when Quentin is like  _ this? _

Instead, he swallows the words down, and his whole body is flooding with it, and he says, “Now, baby, now, now,  _ come.” _

It’s like the word hits them both the same, and like it always does when they get right to the brink and try and wait there, letting go is almost  _ too  _ easy, almost too good.  Eliot can hear Quentin’s groan beneath him, the splatter of come against his stomach, but it barely registers because he’s shoving himself as hard as he can into the cling of Quentin’s tight asshole and just spurting into him all at once, with every muscle of his body locked in agonising tension above Quentin, feeling like he’s on  _ fire,  _ and did orgasms always feel like this?  Has Eliot just forgotten what anything other than this felt like, because this is better than anything, this feels like  _ more  _ than anything, and it feels like he comes for a thousand years, like it’s an endless moment, as he spurts into Quentin’s body and thinks  _ just for this second, you’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine. _

And then all at once, all the tension floods out of his body, and it’s over.  

Eliot lets out a huge, shuddering breath, and collapses down onto Quentin.

It’s a total mess.  They’re both sweaty and Quentin’s come is smearing between their stomachs and Q is panting trying to catch his breath underneath Eliot, too, which Eliot’s heavy body can’t be helping with.  But just for a moment, they lay like that, all pressed together, arms around each other, like they’ve just done something amazing. Like they’re the first people in history to discover sex, or something.  Like they’ve discovered a whole new fucking world.

Eliot forces himself to move just a little, a displeased moan building in the back of his throat, to pull his dick out of Quentin.  That was some of the quicker sex he’s ever had but his dick feels ridiculously sensitive and overworked, like they’d been fucking for hours instead of about ten minutes.  He’s made a real mess of Quentin’s ass, too, and watches for one hot, pleased moment as some of his come smears on Q’s thighs, before deciding he’s too tired to properly appreciate that right now, and falling back down.

“So did it work?” Quentin asks, throat hoarse, still catching his breath, as he tries to push himself up on his elbows.  

Because –– oh, right.  There had been a  _ point  _ to all of this, right?

There’s no movement from the floor of the bedroom, and El watches the moment that panic sets into Quentin’s eyes, like maybe they fucked this up somehow.  Quentin pushes Eliot’s body away –– Eliot goes easily, limbs still feeling jellyish and incorporeal, flopping over to the other side of the mattress with a groan –– and sits up properly on the bed, craning his neck down to the floor to see what’s happened.

And then, all of a sudden, the Penny-body on the floor sits bolt upright, groans, and says, “Why is the first thing I have to fucking see when I get back from almost dying always Quentin Coldwater’s dick?”

“Uh, you’re welcome for my dick saving your  _ life _ ,” says Quentin, but his face is flooding with an emotion Eliot knows him far too well not to recognise.

Quentin Coldwater is hopelessly, ridiculously relieved to see Penny alive and well. 

So is Eliot, if he’s honest, but it’s hard to get up as much enthusiasm as the moment probably deserves when every coherent thought in his mind just shot out of his dick.

“Hi, Penny,” he says, stretching out unabashedly naked on the bed even as Quentin self-consciously wraps himself up in a sheet, giving a lazy wave.  “Very glad to see you’re back in the land of the living. Feel free to join us, if you like, but I’m afraid the fun part’s over. You’re welcome to dash off and greet the others if you like.”

He means  _ Kady,  _ really, although he’s sure everyone in general is gonna be happy to see Penny.  The door opens before Penny can actually take the suggestion, though. A second later, Julia’s head pokes through the gap, hand over her eyes.

“Can I look?” she asks.  Eliot wonders whether she  _ felt  _ it, the culmination of the ritual, through her magic, whether she felt Penny coming back to life, taking shape in the body she built by hand like some kind of crazy genius –– or whether she still doesn’t know if it was successful or not.  He is rather excited to see her reaction, honestly, and grins.

“If you like,” he says, and she immediately takes her hand away from her eyes.  She’s clearly unbothered by Eliot’s nudity and Quentin trying to awkwardly wriggle back into his underwear without getting out of his sheet on the other side of the bed, glancing right past them to Penny _.   _ Penny, alive and well and looking kind of grouchy in the middle of the room.  

Eliot thinks the grouchiness pretty much confirms he’s come back whole and right.

“Oh my god, it actually worked,” Julia says.  She looks, for a moment -– so very sweetly  _ thrilled. _

Eliot doesn’t know Julia well, no, but moments like these he really understands what Quentin sees in her.  It’s the sort of people Quentin draws to him best. The smartest people in the room. People with such passion for magic, such  _ love  _ of it, that they can make even impossible things happen.  It’s Julia, and Alice as well.

Eliot wonders where he fits into all of that.  He doesn’t, really. He’d been smarter than everyone he ever met until he came to Brakebills, where he really didn’t try hard enough to claim that anymore.  He likes magic and what it can do for him, but he doesn’t chase after the cutting edges of it, doesn’t throw himself into it and push boundaries. He’s historically only really used it for his own hedonism.

Of course, he already knew he wasn’t really Quentin’s  _ type _ .  It’s part of why he knows so surely that Q will never properly love him, not as more than a friend.

He pushes away that painful thought right now, shoving it down to the deepest part of his chest like he does every time it crops up, where it aches the least.  He can numb the pain further with some alcohol as soon as they’re back downstairs; he makes a note to himself to find something strong.

“It did,” Penny is saying to Julia, while Eliot spirals on the bed, still barely back in his own body.  “It actually, really did. I mean, I think, at least, all my limbs are moving right and shit ––” He makes a few weird motions with his body like he’s testing that out, extending his elbows, bending his knees, before looking back at her with some of the most genuine awe Eliot thinks he’s ever seen.  It’s not, like,  _ romantic;  _ it’s more how you might look at a goddess.  Eliot understands the feeling. _   “ _ Julia, I don’t know how to –– I mean, it’s fucking insane that you did this for me.  Especially with everything else going on right now, and I know it took a shit ton of magic, and you barely even know me, dude ––”

“Of course I know you,” says Julia, giving one of her kind little half-smiles.  Eliot feels almost like he’s witnessing a private moment that he shouldn’t be here for, but, well.  They’re in  _ his  _ bedroom.  “You’re part of the gang.  You’ve looked after Quentin for me, no matter how much I know you’d hate to admit that.  And Kady loves you, and she’s my best bitch, so. Of course I was going to bring you back.  It was magically fascinating, anyway. Not many people get to save their own spirit by astral projecting through their own death, you know, and that’s the only reason I could bring you back at all.  You’re one of a kind.”

She gives him this secretive little smile, like there’s something amazing about him, and Penny kind of laughs, smiles back all toothy.  It might be the happiest Eliot’s ever seen him look, which is kind of nice.

While Quentin has progressed, in his sheet-tent, off the bed and to the floor to retrieve his t-shirt, which he’s very awkwardly wriggling into, Eliot watches Penny and Julia hug.  It’s a very nice sort of hug. He supposes they’ve shared something very singular, now. As much as Penny’s death had sucked, they’d all been far too busy the last couple of months –– or couple of  _ years,  _ for Eliot and Q –– to think about it much.  Certainly nobody had really been thinking of ways to bring him back.  They hadn’t known where to begin.

But in the midst of all this chaos, Julia had still managed to find time and a way.

It’s even nicer when she says, “I appreciate the thank you, Penny, but I know I’m probably not the person you most want to be hugging right now.”

“When I died, me and Kady weren’t ––” Penny says, sounding rather fitful about it, but Julia just shakes her head.

“I’m one hundred percent sure that none of that matters now.  She’s downstairs. Just go see her, will you? Penny, she’s missed you so much, you have no idea.”

So Penny leaves, sparing only a quick glance back at Eliot and Q.  Eliot really doesn’t mind. Quentin has now located his jeans and got them most of the way on, but he’s managed to button them through the sheet, and is all caught up in it now, twisting around to try and see where he’s lost the corner of it.

“Oh, just come here, you ridiculous puppy,” says Eliot, finally fitting up and grabbing towards Quentin.  His limbs still feel very fucked-out and floppy, but he supposes he’s not getting his postcoital cuddle this time.  It  _ is _ rather extenuating circumstances.  Quentin comes to him, standing awkwardly at the edge of the bed, while Eliot untangles him from the sheet and does up his button for him.  “ _ There,  _ now you’re moderately presentable.”

When he pulls back, he remembers Julia is still in the room.  He’d entirely forgotten her presence for a second there, which is an effect Quentin has on him endlessly.  Eliot could forget a yodelling bear was in the room with them if he was focused on Quentin’s body. He knows this from experience.  Yodelling bears are a thing, in Fillory.

Julia’s looking at them in a way Eliot cannot pin down.  He pats Quentin’s hip and then pushes him away, leaning back on the bed with a sigh.

“Right, was that the end of our job, then?  I’m struggling to recall what we were up to  _ before  _ this whole magical fucking thing came into our day.”

“We were talking about keys,” Julia helpfully reminds him, smile pulling at her lips.  “Which, now we have a traveller back in the mix, I’m thinking might be a bit easier again.  You guys should –– uh, come downstairs, when you’re ready. We can talk plans with Penny.”

She gives them a little wave, and then exchanges some sort of  _ look  _ with Quentin that Eliot can’t identify, before dodging back out of the door.

Quentin, now fully dressed but still looking like an absolute wreck, hovers at the end of the bed kind of awkwardly.  He picks up Eliot’s pants and offers them to him.

With a sigh, Eliot takes them.  He needs a cigarette, and more contact with Quentin, in that way he always wants that after sex –– in the way he really wants that all the  _ time,  _ really, but only allows himself to have it after sex, when they’ve got an excuse, all those hormones, to get all close.

“We should probably go down,” Quentin says, although he doesn’t move.  And then, all stop-and-starty, he kind of jolts towards El, and then pauses, and then comes down all of a sudden, falling onto his hands on the bed above Eliot, and presses a hard kiss to Eliot’s mouth.

Eliot melts into it, reaching up to tug Quentin’s neck down, keep him there for as long as he possibly can.  He will never get his fill of this feeling. He’ll never stop wanting Quentin’s warm mouth against his. 

Quentin pulls back as abruptly as he’d started and Eliot tries not to drag him down again.

“Right,” Eliot agrees, belated.  He can taste Quentin on his lips.  “Downstairs. We should go.”

“We should,” says Quentin.  He doesn’t move. His tongue darts out over his lips, still damp from their kissing.

Eliot wants to kiss him again.  Doesn’t. Doesn’t know how to.

Eliot thinks about a lot of things, including the possibility of going down to see all their friends and resume the tireless and neverending quest, and mostly just feels tired.  And very sweaty.

He says, “I might just have a bath first.”

 

* * *

 

Quentin takes the world’s quickest shower and gets dressed in a fresh set of clothes back in his own room, before he heads downstairs to join in on the reunion.

If he’s honest, no part of him  _ wants  _ to go see anyone else right now.  He only wants to see Eliot. Maybe only Eliot for the rest of time.  Quentin knows he gets –– clingy, in general when he has feelings but especially right after sex.  It’s more than that right now, though.  

Honestly, he’s kind of mortified, now that it’s happened, at the thought of going down and having every single one of his friends know he just got fucked.  By someone he’s not even dating, no less. He’s terrified they’ll want to ask questions about what he and Eliot are to each other, questions which make Quentin miserable to even think about the answers to, and he’s equally terrified they’ll try and joke around and make light of something that’s half an inch away from breaking Quentin’s heart at any given moment.  

He feels rubbed raw, like any wrong brush against him or his emotions would be pure agony.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much of a choice.  They need to talk about the quest, about the fairy key, about where the hell they’re supposed to go from here.  Plus, one of their friends just came back from the  _ dead.   _ He can’t exactly hide up in his room with a fantasy novel and a hoard of Cheetos from  _ this _ social occasion, no matter how much he and Penny were never close.

Speaking of Penny ––

It’s been maybe twenty minutes, Quentin thinks, from the time Penny fled downstairs to reunite with everyone until now, when a freshly showered Quentin is slipping down the stairs in fresh clothes, trying not to limp like someone who just had a very big dick in their ass and also sort of trying to blend into the scenery entirely.  He feels like maybe if he can just stick entirely to the walls as he goes downstairs, he’ll be able to just slide into the edge of the room without any of the others noticing him, and thus avoid making a big deal out of anything.  

But before he can even get to that, at the bottom of the stairs, Quentin suddenly finds himself face-to-face with Penny Adiyodi.

It’s startling, to see him back to being  _ him,  _ even though Quentin was literally intimately involved in the process of bringing him back and saw him less than a half hour ago.  Maybe it’s just startling because it’s Penny, who has always sort of had the ability to startle Quentin. Q sort of half-jumps in surprise and then plays it off by grabbing the bannister, although Penny rolls his eyes, clearly not convinced.

“Dude, chill out,” Penny says.  Quentin very nearly feels like screaming  _ I have a lot on my plate, Penny, I am allowed to have nervous energy!  _ but, like, doesn’t.  “I just. Uh.”

“Uh,” Quentin repeats.  He’s not sure he’s ever heard Penny sound uncertain while talking to  _ him.   _ It’s usually just any mixture of reluctant, exasperated, annoyed, or outright furious.  “Did you need something, or…”

“Nah, man.  I just.” Penny huffs, eyes flitting around and never quite landing on Quentin; his arms cross defensively across his chest.  “Listen, I just wanted to say thank you, okay?”

Quentin feels moderately hysterical.  “Sorry, I think I must have misheard that.”

“Oh, don’t make it into a  _ thing,”  _ Penny says, rolling his eyes.  “I just –– listen, okay, you don’t get a thanks from me every day, so will you shut the fuck up and let me get through it?  The thing is, dude, I  _ really  _ didn’t want to be dead.  Like, really fucking didn’t.  And, like, I mostly owe all this shit to Julia, who apparently is fucking awesome, but I get that you were like –– a key player, at the end here.”  That’s one way of putting it, Quentin supposes. “And you made it pretty clear today that you didn’t want anyone to know you were fucking Waugh, but you came clean about it just so you could help save my ass, and.  Yeah. You’re the reason I’m walking around right now, and people can see me without a fucking magic key, and I can kiss the girl who’s not my girlfriend, and I can actually be  _ useful  _ to this whole fucked up situation again, so.  Yeah. I’m saying fucking thanks, dude.”

One hand on the bannister, one foot still hovering in mid-air between the bottom step of the stairs and the floor, Quentin feels slightly blown away.  This might be the most positive interaction he thinks he’s ever had with Penny. He’s not quite sure how to act.

He also knows, of course, that he’s not the same as nervous little first year Quentin who was constantly shitting himself over having a roommate who seemed so much cooler and tougher than him –– he knows now that they’re both just  _ people,  _ and yeah, that makes it a little easier to meet in the middle on things.

So he says, “Hey, Penny, of course.  I mean, no matter how many times you’ve annoyed the shit out of me, I wasn’t going to let you stay  _ dead.   _ Some things are just fundamentally more important than my own relationship drama, I get that.”  Then pauses, feels a flush of  _ confident Quentin,  _ adds wryly, “Anyway, it was far from the worst ritual we could’ve had to do.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, honestly.”

Penny snorts, not completely unkindly.  “If the raw freaking energy I cam back to life with has anything to do with it, that was the best fucking afternoon of your life, man.”

Quentin decides not to overshare and admit that every time with Eliot is like that, because, well, this is still Penny.  But he grins just a little bit anyway, shakes his head, strands of his shower-damp hair falling in his eyes.

“For real, though, Penny.  I’m glad you’re okay. I know we’re not –– whatever.  But you’re my friend.  In some obscure definition of the word, at least.  And you being around is kind of really important, to all of us.”

Quentin is surprised to realise how much he means it; to really feel, in that moment, how much emotion swells up in him around this, how strongly he feels.  Penny looks like he doesn’t know what to say. He meets Quentin’s eyes for a moment, and then reaches out, and claps him on the shoulder.

“You too, man.  Try not to die on any of these shitty quests, yeah?”

Quentin thinks that’s probably the nicest thing Penny has ever said to him.

He also can't help but think back to yesterday, to even just this morning, when everything in the universe felt so entirely helpless.  When Quentin felt like the biggest failure alive, and like his whole future was slipping away from him, because he couldn't do the quest alone.  Because he needed help.

And on a day he thought was going to be so shitty, he ended up helping bring someone back to  _life._

Quentin doesn't feel quite so useless, anymore.  Even if it was just his convenient sexual history that made him the best person to help with this, he  _got_ to help.  He got to make a difference.  And even if Julia did most of the hard work, Quentin realises rather abruptly, it actually feels pretty good to have worked like that.  _Together_.  A small part of a whole; he could get used to that.  Sometimes, Quentin thinks, it's the very smallest things which end up building something _great_.  

 

* * *

And then, there’s what happens next.  After Eliot has sauntered down the stairs; after they’ve all gathered in the living room together, Eliot heading right to make drinks and Quentin trying not to meet anyone else’s eyes, and Julia red in the cheeks, and Margo looking far too pleased with herself, and Josh rolling a joint, and Penny and Kady sat too close on the couch to be casual, and it’s all just a whole lot of stuff for one room to hold.  And then.

A sound like the whole world is splitting in two, shaking the whole cottage, _shattering_ the glass in Eliot's hand, slicing through Quentin's whole skull for just a fraction of a second, not even long enough for him to start to gasp before it's over again _. _

And ––

“What’s up, dickwads,” says Marina Andreiski, sauntering out of the Fillory clock in the corner, in an all-black outfit and heels which look like you could use them to stab someone to death in a pinch. “Heard this timeline was lacking one of me, and it sounded better than mine, so here I am.  Oh, you might want this.”

While Quentin is still gaping at her with his ears ringing and his brain short-circuiting, she opens her hand, and throws a golden key through the air towards him.  He fumbles and catches it against his chest at the very last moment.

“I —  _ uh _ —“ he says, very intelligently.

“Watch out for that one,” Marina warns, as she strides further into the house. “You hold onto it too long, it gives you visions.  There’s something evil waiting for you at the end of the world when you turn magic back on, by the way.” And then she looks at Quentin and Eliot, stood stiffly beside each other, too close but steadfastly not touching, and says, “Okay, you two just  _ scream  _ weird vibes, you know that right?  Are they the fun kind of weird, at least?”

“Does anyone want to explain what the  _ hell is going on,”  _ Kady asks, helpfully, behind them.

“Got any food in this place?” Marina says, so clearly the answer to that is:  _ no.   _ She disappears into the kitchen, entirely too casual, and Quentin just stands there, far too close to Eliot, clutching a key.

_ What _ , he thinks,  _ the fuck? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want y'all to know that i planned almost no scenes for this fic when i began writing, but one of my VERY first and only notes was 'q and el bring penny back to life with sex magic (for some reason??)'. so. i followed through
> 
> also in the original draft of this chapter they were gonna fuck in a tesla flexion machine but then even i realised that made no sense
> 
> as always, u can find me on tumblr [here](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com), and please leave a comment and let me know if you liked the chapter!!


	8. to do the useful thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may notice the chapter count has gone up from 9 to 11 !! that's not bc i'm adding more content to the plan, but simply bc there was SO much to cover in these last 2 episodes that i've split them both in half, for the sake of like, readability and also my own sanity
> 
> so with no further ado, enjoy the fillorian arc of 'the fillorian candidate' (which still clocks in at about 15k even as only half an episode)

_ to do the useful thing,  _ __  
_ to say the courageous thing,  _ __  
_ to contemplate the beautiful thing:  _ _  
_ __ that is enough for one man's life.

_ ––T.S. Eliot _

* * *

 

The next morning, consciousness comes to Eliot in fragments.

First, he’s only aware of a great, lovely  _ warmth  _ through his whole body.  It’s so delicious that he luxuriates in it for a while, before slowly coming to notice the weight draped entirely across him, heavier than any duvet he remembers ever owning.  Next, the sunlight streaming through the curtains makes its way through his eyelids, and Eliot, feeling delightfully well rested and not dragged out of consciousness against his will for once, lets his eyes flicker open to enjoy it.

It’s only then that the rest of it comes back to him.  He’s in his bed at the Physical Kids Cottage, and the weight on top of him is Quentin Coldwater, laying naked and fully pressed against him with his head on Eliot’s chest.

This, Eliot thinks, is categorically the best thing which could be on top of his body, luxurious feather duvet be damned.

A moment later, his body processes yet another sensation.  Although he’s tucked up there, Quentin isn’t sleeping against Eliot’s chest; he’s wide awake, and he has Eliot’s right hand held in one of his, up to his mouth, so that he can suck at Eliot’s fingers.

“Well, good morning,” Eliot says, voice rough but delighted.  Quentin shuffles against him a little, his hair scrunching against Eliot’s chest, so he can stare up at him.  Quentin has sleep in the corners of his eyes, and a mischievous glint in the middle of them.

“Morning,” says Quentin, around Eliot’s fingertips, and then bites them.  Kind of hard.

“Excuse you,” Eliot says, pretending to be affronted.  He thinks the act would go over more convincingly if his dick hadn’t twitched against Quentin’s bare thigh as he did it, but judging by the way Quentin’s grinning up at him now, he knows that too.

Quentin shrugs, still pressed against Eliot’s body, and says, “You were taking too long to wake up.  Don’t we need to, like, seize the day and stuff?”

“Who told you I was interested in seizing the day?  That’s slander against my character. I’m interested in seizing attractive men and  _ nothing  _ else.”

Eliot’s still in that delicious state that hits when he first wakes up, like he’s conscious and aware but also the world is just a little bit softened at the edges; his body is still heavy like it’s dragging down into the mattress, and every touch from Quentin feels extra warm, molasses-sweet, like he’s savouring it right down through his bones.

Eliot extracts his fingers from Quentin’s mouth so that he can stretch both arms up above his head, wriggling down against the sheets a bit to make the most of the delectable feeling pooling all through him, before letting his arms fall back down and bracket Quentin’s body this time.

“Oh, look at that,” Eliot says, like he’s making some brand new discovery.  He shoves the crumpled duvet off Quentin’s back with one hand, and maps the territory of warm, bare skin.  “An attractive man for me to seize, right here in my very own bed!”

“You’re ridiculous,” Quentin says, but.  Well. He’s sort of arching back into Eliot’s hand like a cat so he doesn’t seem to mind too much.

Eliot has to, like, physically stop himself from saying  _ ridiculously in love with you,  _ or something equally horrifying and cheesy, and ruining his own entire life.

There’s something that feels oddly precious in this moment.  Eliot’s dick is interested in the naked Quentin touching his body, like it always is, but he’s not feeling some great imperitve to have sex right this second.  He’s not feeling much urge to do anything at all.

So Eliot lets himself finish the task of coming out of sleep slowly, enjoying each moment of the world sharpening up around him in the sunlight, as Quentin inspects the ridges of Eliot’s ribs with peculiar focus, running his fingers up and down Eliot’s sides like he’s cataloging it in his mind.

“That tickles,” Eliot murmurs, but when Quentin’s fingers pause, he adds, “Don’t  _ stop.” _

Quentin’s fingers start working up his ribs again.  Eliot lets out a breath.

Eliot has had plenty of lovers, some for more than a few nights, some who even came with genuine familiarity and affection, who only ever marvelled over the sexy parts of him.  They liked his dick and his nipples and his long fingers; they liked his mouth for blowjobs and for kissing. Maybe they’d like holding his hand a while. Maybe they’d tell him he had beautiful eyes.  The compliments felt good and he was happy to know those parts of himself were attractive, but it was always the classic rollcall of _ sexy parts  _ that they’d enjoyed.

It’s not like he thinks that’s awful, or even  _ not good _ .  He actually thinks that’s probably how most people in the world love.  It’s just Quentin Coldwater who is so immensely different.

Quentin likes kissing Eliot’s belly button, not because it’s close to his dick and he’s working his way downwards, but just because he seems to find it fascinating.  He runs his fingers through the hairs on Eliot’s thighs like he could do it forever; he kisses the delicate skin in the dips of Eliot’s ankles, or the insides of his elbows.  Sometimes he just traces his finger feather-light up and down the curve of Eliot’s nose, up and down, up and down, over and over again like he’s hypnotised by a feature El’s always mildly hated about himself; other times, he likes laving attention underneath Eliot’s ears and along the knobbly vertebrae at the top of his spine.  There’s always something so delightful about all of it, like it  _ could  _ be part of sex or could become part of sex, but it could also never head that way, could remain something delightfully almost innocent, sensual at most.

At times, it feels like sex is only a tiny portion of Quentin’s enjoyment of Eliot’s body.  Even if there is nothing sexual going on, Quentin just — enjoys him, in places and ways Eliot has never been enjoyed before.  Places and ways he doesn’t think most people ever get to experience in their lives, even if they’re really in love.

Of course, Quentin isn’t in love with him; Eliot knows that. But if the close bounds of their friendship can collide with Quentin’s ever-earnest, uniquely devoted attentions like this, Eliot isn’t going to complain. 

“Want to have morning sex?” Eliot suggests, rather unceremoniously, as his fingers twist a strand of Quentin’s hair around.  Quentin’s fingers stop moving on his ribs, and then a moment later Quentin’s head is popping up, chin propped on Eliot’s chest, to stare at him.

“Is that a question you seriously have to ask?” he says.  He’s all warm and soft against Eliot and he looks  _ gorgeous  _ in sunlight and Quentin is always particularly horny in the mornings, a quirk that Eliot doesn’t necessarily share –– he’s an ‘all the time but particularly 1am after a few glasses of wine’ kind of guy himself –– but is always happy to indulge.

“Well, you haven’t kissed me yet, so I thought I’d better check,” Eliot points out, but he can barely finish getting the sentence out before Quentin is bracing his hands on the mattress and pushing up to crush their lips together.

The kiss is slow in that early-morning sort of way, but still absolutely burning with heat.  Eliot holds the back of Quentin’s head and licks into Quentin’s mouth, slows him down when Q starts trying to get too frantic with it, just kisses him and kisses him, slow and hot and moving like waves as the tide comes in, until they’re hot and so crammed-up-tense inside that not even Eliot can tease anymore.

Their sex life has patterns and common routines, but it has never been just one thing.  Quentin loves being taken apart and Eliot loves being the one doing the taking, which works out well, but they haven’t ever been confined to a specific way of fucking just because of that.  There are always lots of different ways to achieve a similar goal, in Eliot’s opinion.

Eliot can’t describe  _ why _ he’s in the mood for it this morning, he just knows he is, the feeling settling over him thick and sweet like honey.  He lays sprawled on the bed, body still sleep-slow and delightfully heavy, tucks one hand into Quentin’s hair, and suggests, “Fuck me?”

Quentin gets the slightly startled little furrow between his brows that he always does when Eliot asks that.  It’s unfairly adorable.

“Really?” he asks, although there’s this  _ excited puppy  _ tint to his tone, no matter how much he’s trying to hide it.  Eliot nearly rolls his eyes. Quentin knows that if he ever really wants to fuck Eliot he only has to ask, but he never  _ does  _ ask, even when he seemingly has the urge to: it’s always Eliot who suggests it, like this.  He doesn’t mind calling the shots in bed, far from it, but Q’s uncertainty over what he ever wants is so ridiculously  _ Quentin  _ that Eliot can’t help being equal parts exasperated and endeared by it.

“Yes, really.  Do you think I would joke about something as sacred as anal sex, Quentin?”

“I don’t even want to know what kind of deities you’d be praying to for sacred anal sex,” Quentin says, but he’s already rolling off Eliot to reach for the lube, so Eliot doesn’t bother snarking back.

Quentin fingers him thoroughly and slowly, dragging out the lazy morning feeling to its very end, as the sunlight falls over them both and warms Eliot to his core.  He lets Quentin play with his prostate until his dick is completely hard, feeling hot and tight where it bobs against his stomach. This is a more familiar territory; Eliot’s never been the most enthusiastic fan of bottoming on an average day, but who doesn’t love a bit of prostate stimulation while they’re getting a blowjob?  So Quentin’s done  _ this  _ probably a hundred times by now.

The next part, less so.  It’s far from their first time this way, though, and they’re maybe getting into it enough that Quentin doesn’t look nervous the way he did the first time.  He’s gaining more confidence in sex by the day, honestly –– Eliot remembers how he’d been their first time together, so enthusiastic and earnest but also clumsy and consistently  _ terrified  _ of doing something wrong, apologising every other second.  He’s still delightfully clumsy in his own way, but all the terror is gone, by now.  Eliot plans on taking all the credit for turning him into a delightful little sex god.

“Are you ready?” Quentin asks, as he leans back up to give Eliot a wet kiss.  El bends one knee and stretches out his legs, pushing down onto Quentin’s fingers one last time, before letting out a little hum.

“Ready for anything, darling, you know me.” 

They kiss again, sloppy and slow for a minute, before pulling apart.  Eliot puts himself on his knees, bracing hands on the headboard so he can still do most of the work, which is honestly how they both like it regardless of whose dick is in whose ass.  Quentin lets out an awkward little huff of breath and Eliot feels it, hot against the back of his neck, as Q lines up behind him.

“You don’t have to take  _ so _ very long over it,” Eliot tells him, and Quentin pinches his hip.

“I’m trying not to  _ hurt  _ you, dickhole.”

“Wrong hole,” Eliot snarks, grinning down towards the pillow, just to feel the huff of Quentin’s aborted laughter against the back of his neck again.

And then Quentin is pressing inside him, and Eliot’s mouth goes far too dry to speak.

Fuck, but this feels good.  Eliot maybe doesn’t often want to be fucked, but when he does –– he wants it  _ just  _ like this.  Quentin’s dick isn’t excessively big enough to make the stretch painful, thankfully, is actually just the perfect size for Eliot to take, and he flexes his toes against the sheets as Quentin slowly pushes inside him.  The pressure is –– heavy, and odd to adjust to, and yet it feels so  _ good  _ in such a strange way, even before the actual pleasurable part of fucking has properly begun.

He can feel Quentin’s hot open-mouthed breaths hitching against the back of his neck; Quentin is trying hard to keep in control, to be careful and go slow, even though he’s  _ terrible  _ at going slow, even though he wants things all-at-once-right-now when he really wants them.  He’s trying to make it good for Eliot, even though El can feel him so tense where he’s plastered against Eliot’s back, can feel how he’s nearly squirming with need.

“It’s okay, baby, you got me ready really well, you can just move,” Eliot tells him, and Quentin makes a little noise, and does just that.

He doesn’t go exactly fast or slow; he’s not animalistic and frantic, and he’s not deliberately slow and teasing either.  He’s not trying to turn sex into an art or a game –– not trying to impress, show off, dazzle the way Eliot does even in the midst of things he’s really enjoying –– he’s just  _ doing  _ it, chasing what feels good into Eliot’s body.

There is something so very Quentin about that.  Eliot adores it and doesn’t know what to do with the fact that he adores it.  His mouth is dry and Quentin keeps fucking him and a shiver goes down Eliot’s spine.  He braces his hands against the headboard and pushes back against Quentin, trying to make the pace faster, faster, faster.

“I’m close,” Quentin gasps, lips wet and brushing the knob of Eliot’s spine, some maddening amount of time later.  Eliot has nearly lost his mind in it all by then, can barely remember where he is or  _ who  _ he is or what the fuck is going on other than the fact that his body feels bright-hot and heavy and full of glorious shoving pressure in all the right places, but he tries to drag himself back to earth with Quentin’s words.  Eliot’s getting there too, can feel it building in the space behind his balls, and he fucks himself  _ quick quick quick hard hard hard  _ back onto Quentin’s dick a few more times before swallowing around his dry throat and stilling.

Quentin groans and buries his face in Eliot’s shoulder, hips still frantically chasing into Eliot’s body, until Eliot reaches back with one grasping hand to still him.

“Okay, baby, as good as this all is, we probably have to go save the world in some way today,” Eliot forces out, his voice coming rougher and far more breathless than he’d have liked –– being pragmatic in the midst of mindblowing sex is one of Eliot’s talents, but not something he  _ likes  _ having to do.  “And I’m not in the mood to have come dripping out of my ass the whole time we’re doing that.  Let me over.”

So Quentin makes a desperate little noise and pulls out, sitting back on his heels and both his hands immediately going to his dick, fisting it like he just can’t  _ help  _ himself, while Eliot rolls onto his back and flops back onto the bed.  Then he pulls Quentin down with a hand around his neck –– and Quentin just  _ goes,  _ so very easily, always so ready to be directed, to be moved, to be held –– and Eliot kisses him, open-mouthed and filthy, their tongues moving as fast as their fucking had a second ago, and Quentin’s hand working himself, his breath hitching like he’s  _ right  _ on the edge, which –– okay, yeah, he is, because two seconds later he comes with a splatter all over Eliot’s stomach.

Some of it gets on Eliot’s dick too, still bright red and achingly hard, and fuck, that’s hot.  Quentin kind of collapses on top of him, panting, but manages to keep kissing at Eliot’s neck, and get one hand down between them, swipes his hand through his own come and uses the slick of it to jerk Eliot off ––

Eliot comes almost ridiculously fast, just a few seconds later.  With his ass still aching and open, and Quentin flushed-hot and sticky with pleasure and pressed entirely against his naked body, and the sunlight just beginning to pour in the window,  _ fuck,  _ Eliot isn’t sure it’s ever been better than this.

Everything goes white behind his eyes for a minute.

He comes to quickly enough, panting and clutching so hard with his arms around Quentin’s body that he’s leaving little white finger-marks against Quentin’s flushed pink skin, but almost wishes he’d stayed like that.  Almost wishes he’d just passed right out once he came, or at least lost himself in some other world.

In this world, he can feel Quentin’s hot breath against his neck, and the not-yet-uncomfortable feeling of come wet on his skin, and the glorious ache in his ass that tells him he just got well fucked.  But he also has to count the precious moments.

Any second now, Eliot knows, Quentin is going to get his breath back, and then he won’t want to be lazing around with Eliot anymore.  He’ll leap out of bed to go start the day, go on a quest, save the magical world, without another thought about the way he got his rocks off that morning.  And it’ll just be Eliot left there, glass-thin heart gripped in a dangerous vice inside his chest, wishing for more.

All he can do, of course, is hold onto Quentin as tight as he possibly can for these few scant minutes he gets.  And that’s better than nothing, Eliot tells himself sternly; that’s  _ certainly  _ better than having none of Quentin at all.

Still.  The miserable clutch of his heart inside his chest is kind of ruining the fucking afterglow.  Eliot draws Quentin in closer to him and buries his face in Quentin’s soft hair, just breathing him in, just  _ feeling  _ him, and for once, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t come up with some witty comment or snarky aside to break the tender moment, to make the parting easier when it happens.

Just for a minute, Eliot holds Quentin in gentle silence, and lets himself pretend.  Lets himself pretend this is really  _ his _ .

 

* * *

 

Despite everyone knowing about them now, Quentin takes it upon himself to sneak out of Eliot’s room in the morning and appear downstairs separately.  There’s a difference between everyone knowing they have — past tense — occasionally fucked, and between them knowing they  _ are _ — present tense — currently fucking and sleeping side by side and having messy emotions pretty much every night.

Luckily for Quentin, if not very luckily for the world at large, there’s so much high stakes drama going on at the moment that nobody seems very concerned at all with his love life.  When he emerges downstairs, Margo and Julia are already talking in low voices on one of the couches — and Quentin doesn’t think he’s ever actually seen them have a conversation before, which is nuts when he thinks about it — and Penny appears from the kitchen with coffee a moment later, leaning against the wall in the corner and not looking keen to talk to the rest of them.  

“What are we talking about?” Quentin asks, dipping into the kitchen to grab his own mug of coffee — and a second one, on total autopilot — before coming back out to join Margo and Jules on the couch.  

The pair of them exchange a look.

“Oh, just the totally fucked fate of the universe, nothing unusual,” Margo says.  There is an unmistakably Eliot-made creak from the stairs; Quentin forces himself not to look up, even if that alone kind of gives away the fact that he’s intimately familiar with Eliot’s footfall enough to identify him blind.  Margo has no such paranoia. She looks, and waves Eliot over. 

“We should probably wait until everyone’s here to go over all of it,” Julia says next.  There’s a calm air about her that Quentin can’t quite put his finger on — something like her mood is hovering a couple inches outside her own body, which is an odd thought but Quentin can’t unthink it once he’s noticed — and it’s clearly strong, because even Quentin finds himself a little less anxious.

Eliot, meanwhile, crosses to the couch and takes the milky mug of coffee out of Quentin’s right hand without Q saying anything, leaving Quentin with the plain black one.

“One sugar?” Eliot checks, as he settles down on the couch.  He’s gotten dressed since Quentin last saw him and is so absurdly handsome that Q can’t bring himself to look directly.  

“Two,” Quentin corrects, sipping at his own coffee. “You complain it’s not sweet enough with just one.”

“Well you’re not supposed to  _ listen  _ to me when I complain.  You’re trying to ruin my figure,” Eliot  _ tsks _ , holding the mug precariously in his long fingers.  Quentin rolls his eyes.

“The gods themselves couldn’t ruin your figure, you have an inhuman metabolism.  Shut up and drink it.”

He’s almost entirely forgotten there’s anyone else in the room until Julia waves a hand between them and says, “so much of  _ this _ makes sense now that I know you guys are fucking.”

It’s like a bolt of lightning through him.  Quentin pulls back from Eliot immediately, setting a few extra inches of space between them on the couch and hiding his face behind his coffee mug.

“Oh, Jesus, don’t make me re-live that knowledge,” says Penny from across the room.  Quentin sticks a middle finger up without looking at him and tries not to feel overwhelmingly embarrassed by Julia’s observation. 

“We should, uh, talk about what we’re going to do now, I guess,” he says, trying to move on quickly from the moment.  “Where’s Kady?” He pauses for a definitely too-long moment before adding, “Oh, and Josh?”

It doesn’t take long to round them up, and then everyone’s sat in the living room together, drinking coffee or picking their way through breakfast, with an overwhelming set of questions hovering in the air above them.  Is having the seventh key from an alternate timeline rather than their own going to mess things up? How do they get the sixth key from the fairies? And what the hell are they supposed to do about Marina’s warning?

He decides to start with that one.

“So, uh, I know Marina’s whole  _ you’re going to unleash evil  _ speech freaked us out a bit, but I think we just need to forge ahead with getting the sixth key for now,” Quentin says, while everyone glances at each other with varying degrees of stress.  “I mean, it’s not like we have much choice. This is the way to turn magic back on, so –– everything else kind of needs to be secondary.”

“Me and Fen are still working to help the fairies, but in terms of getting the sixth key, I’m not sure there’s much else I can do,” Julia pipes up, from beside Quentin.  She’s stolen the second half of his mug of coffee, which Quentin tries and fails to take back. She’s seemed –– distracted, almost, for a few minutes, keeps turning her head away like there’s something else in the room she needs to focus on, but now that they’re actually planning things she seems to have snapped back to attention.

“That’s fine,” Margo tells her.  “I’ve got an idea on how to talk the fairy bitch around.  Just need Eliot and Q to grab a portal back to Fillory with me.”

Quentin’s eyebrows shoot up, since this is the first he’s heard about it, but he just says, “Uh, okay.”

“And in the  _ meantime,”  _ Kady cuts in.  Her voice is harsh and she’s the only one not having any breakfast or coffee –– Quentin would almost think there was something going on, except he can see the way her body is still angled towards Penny like she never wants to stop looking at him, so things are clearly at least slightly better for her right now than they have been lately –– “Can we actually talk about fucking Marina?  The rest of you might wanna skippety past that, but you don’t know her like I do, okay. If  _ Marina  _ says there’s something evil waiting for us?  That means, like, primordial, end-of-the-world fucking evil.  She wouldn’t waste her breath on anything less than a god.”

“Well, like Q says, we don’t have a whole lot of really fuckably-sexy options here,” Margo responds.  That is not how Quentin remembers putting it, but he’s hardly going to argue. “I get the whole evil blah blah blah thing, but it’s not like it came from a reliable source.  A hedgebitch from another universe? Who’s to say the vision wasn’t meant for  _ her  _ timeline.  She didn’t even have any more details to give us than that.   _ And _ she drank all my good tequila.”

“Oh, so we’re just supposed to take a chance on that?  We’ve already nearly ended the world once,” Kady snaps.  She takes a step closer, and Margo juts her chin out, and Quentin almost thinks for a second they’re about to rip each other to shreds by the tension in the room and the way everyone is suddenly holding their breath –– but then Julia puts a hand between them.

“So we figure out if it’s true,” Julia says, and calm just  _ pours  _ out of her.  It almost sends a shudder through Quentin, for a second; he’s not sure what’s happening, but it’s like Julia’s sent out the softest kind of thunderstrike in history, and the whole room lets out a breath.  “We get the sixth key, but at the same time we research this castle at the end of the world, and figure out what’s inside.”

“Okay, so maybe we can split up tasks.  Have, uh, three teams?” Quentin suggests.

“Ooh, do we get to pick names like in phys ed?  I call Margo,” Eliot says, in the midst of pouring a finger of whiskey from his flask into his coffee mug.  Quentin elbows him in the ribs, but it just makes Eliot grin.

“Me, El, and Margo are going back to Fillory to get the sixth key, apparently, so we can be on that.  Jules, you and Fen are still trying to help the fairies here? So maybe everyone else can be on researching this whole, uh, evil monster thing?  Penny, Kady, Josh?”

“Oh, we’re bringing Josh to Fillory too,” Margo announces rather suddenly.  Josh, who has been largely focusing on providing everyone with bagels this morning, looks up from the other side of the room, eyes going wide.  Quentin raises an eyebrow at her too, but Margo just shrugs. “What? Catering on the Muntjac is for shit. If we’re gonna be fugitives again, I at least want someone there to make us tacos.”

“So just me and Kady doing the dull as shit job, then,” Penny concludes.  Admittedly they’re not the pair Quentin would have put on research duty if they’d been dividing this up evenly, but they’re all having to do a lot of things that don’t come natural to them for the sake of this quest, so he just shrugs, unapologetic.

“I can give you a list of books to start with.  Actually, Penny, you might be really good on that, if you could astral project into the Library and find some books there?  They’re bound to have more info than we can find down here.”

“That’s totally  _ not _ how astral projection works, you moron.”

“Yeah, nobody cares, so speaking of the fucking library,” Kady says, leaning forwards once again.  “Are we just  _ not  _ gonna talk about Alice, too?”

And suddenly, Quentin’s spine goes cold.

“Actually, good fucking question,” Penny agrees, crossing his arms and turning his gaze to Quentin, making an absolute matching set of judgement with Kady where he’s stood just behind her shoulder.  For a moment Quentin wonders if bringing Penny back so those two could gang up on him was all a giant mistake. “What the shit is going on with her? She hasn’t been back here for weeks, last thing we heard was in that weird unity spell –– and if you ask me, it sounds like we needed to be as worried about her and the library as we do about any weird-ass monsters.”

“We absolutely can’t trust the library,” Julia says, immediately, her voice stronger and more sure than Quentin has heard it in a while; it makes him bob back for a second, surprised.  “They literally snort the bones of fairies, Q. Whatever they have planned, if they’re trying to get involved in this, I don’t trust the moral ground they’re standing on for a second _.”   _

“Yeah, I don’t trust them, I never said I trusted them,” Quentin agrees quickly.  “I don’t know what’s going on with Alice, guys, I haven’t heard from her either, but I promise I’m gonna –– deal with it.  As soon as we get the last key.”

It makes his head hurt, and complex, unhappy feelings churn in his stomach, but Quentin really does resolve, privately to himself as well as outloud to the rest of them, that he’s going to find Alice before they go to turn magic back on, and find out  _ exactly  _ what’s going on with her.  Because so far, none of it makes sense.

He  _ wants _ to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it’s just doubt all the way down.

“Right.  Key first,  _ then  _ crazy exes,” says Eliot.  Quentin frowns, because he doesn’t like anyone calling Alice crazy –– especially not before they’ve even found out what’s going on with her, but even then –– and also because he doesn’t like thinking of Alice as  _ just  _ an ex rather than, like, a very complex friend he resents on some levels but still enjoys on others.  But Eliot keeps talking before Quentin can correct him on any of that. “Bambi, wanna fill us all in on  _ la sixième clé?   _ You said you had an update. _ ”    _

Margo claps her hands together and leans forwards, clearly eager to move on from all the boring talking-about-plans and actually get down to action.

“Okay,  _ so,  _ the rub of it is.  We’ve been trying to negotiate with the fairy queen for the last key, but this is all we got back.”

She points to the corner of the room, where a fluffy white rabbit announces in a gruff smoker’s-cough of a voice, “ _ EAT MY ASS _ .”

“I think I have a new angle,” she continues, “But the complexities of my blackmail attempts really aren’t being conveyed adequately by rabbits.  We need to get back to Fillory, and then somehow figure out how to summon her when we’re the last fuckin’ people she wants to talk to. I can take it from there.”

Quentin has never really been that involved with the fairies –– that was all Eliot and Margo at first, and then Julia and Fen took up things on earth, but despite the fairies being a  _ very key player  _ in the barrage of fuckery that is this quest, Quentin’s never had much to do with them.  He thinks as hard as he can for a moment, but absolutely nothing springs to mind. He gets it, of course he does, why the fairies wouldn’t want to give it to them: fairies can still  _ do  _ magic now, and their whole realm will collapse without the key.  There’s nothing Quentin can do about that, but there’s also nothing he can do about the fact that they  _ need  _ that key, by any means necessary.

He just doesn’t have a single idea what those means could be.

Which is why it’s lucky, as always, that he has Eliot.  Eliot, who is lounging back on the couch with his whiskey-spiked coffee and his long legs stretched in front of him, lets out a polite little cough.

“I might have some ideas,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Apparently, Eliot’s not-daughter now works at a Fillorian talking animal pub, making drinks.  It is, to Quentin, such an  _ Eliot  _ sort of thing that he has to remind himself all over again that Fray isn’t El’s daughter after all.

Fray looks up when they enter, and when her eyes land on Eliot it’s –– the closed to  _ pleased  _ Quentin has ever seen her look, in the admittedly brief time that he’s known her.  Her mouth doesn’t move, but her eyes go wide for a moment in shock, and then something vulnerable settles in them, something innocent and sweet.  Quentin remembers all at once that she’s really quite young.

She, of course, greets them with a grouchy remark, but she does give them drinks on the house, so that’s something.

As Quentin sips at the heady Fillorian ale and Margo wanders off into the pub, it’s Eliot who leans forwards, duffing one knuckle against Fray’s chin, and says, “We’re not here strictly on pleasure, I’m afraid.  We need to speak to the fairy queen –– it’s an emergency –– but she won’t answer our calls. We were thinking you of all people would know how to get in touch with her.”

“No!” says Fray immediately, and, oh yeah, there’s her snarky look back.  “The last time I saw her, she threatened to  _ murder  _ me.”

“Okay, but glass half full, she didn’t actually go  _ through _ with it,” Eliot points out, waving a leisurely hand in the air.  Quentin quickly catches his hand and drags it back to the countertop, shooting him a furrowed-brow look that means  _ be serious _ . 

“Okay, uh, forget about the queen for a sec,” Quentin says quickly.  He wipes a spilled drop of ale hastily off his chin and tries to sound like he’s got a clue what he’s talking about when he adds, “What about your fairy brothers and sisters –– I mean, stepbrothers and stepsisters, I guess?  Just, like, the fairy kids you grew up with? Can you get hold of one of them? All we really need is a line into the fairy realm, right now.”

But Fray just.  Frowns at him. Like he’s maybe a total idiot.

It’s not a look Quentin is unused to receiving, but it still makes him huff a bit.

“There were no fairy children in the realm,” Fray says, like everyone should surely know that.  “Just humans they bartered away from their real parents. Like me.”

Quentin frowns.  Something about that doesn’t sit right with him, but he can’t put his finger on quite  _ what  _ it means, and doesn’t have time to process it anyway, as Fray carries on, “And now those other human children wouldn’t speak to me anyway!  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a total outcast. Ever since getting sent to  _ you,  _ it’s ruined everything for me.  I can’t go back to the fairies, I don’t fit in with the humans.  I mean, why do you think I work in an  _ animal  _ pub.”

“I thought you were maybe just a big fan of zoology,” Quentin says weakly, while Eliot sighs and downs half a pint of ale beside him.

Across the room, he can hear Margo cheerily announce, “Hey, dude, trust me, I’m not judging you!” At least  _ she  _ seems to be enjoying the animal pub.

“Okay, listen,” Eliot says, when he emerges from his drink.  He’s got that fast,  _ all-business  _ voice on all of a sudden, so different to the light and lilting way he teases or persuades.  It’s kind of hot but Quentin can’t think about that right now. “It’s too late for me to fix your fucked up childhood, we can all agree on that.  But what we’re trying to propose to the fairies is bigger than any of us. It could bring  _ real  _ peace, to humans and to fairies.  If the distance and fighting between us all ceased, do you think, just maybe, you wouldn’t feel so alone?”

“That’s –– kind,” says Fray, stilted like it’s maybe her first time ever saying the word.  “But just so you know, I’m not  _ alone _ .”

Margo chooses that moment to reappear by their sides, still laughing over her shoulder like you do when you leave a conversation partway through, and shoving her empty tankard to Fray for a refill.  She sets her elbows on the counter and leans close.

“I love that bear,” she announces.  Quentin glances over her shoulder and notices the huge black bear she’d been talking to, waving one heavy paw at her in farewell.

“So do I,” Fray says, looking at him too.  Which –– Quentin’s brain ticks, working on something ––

“Yeah, hooray for bears, but we were kind of having a  _ moment,”  _ Eliot mutters to Margo.  Margo looks at him across Quentin, lips pursed like she’s barely holding in a grin, her eyelashes fluttering.  

“No, honey, she  _ loves  _ him.”

_ Oh,  _ thinks Quentin, all of a sudden, as Margo takes a satisfied sip of her drink.   _ Ohhhh. _

“Oh,” says Eliot, looking exactly like Quentin feels.  “Um, so not bear-boss, bear-boyfriend?” Fray sort of shrugs, clearly a touch self-conscious.  Eliot looks sideways at Quentin and asks, “Is that a  _ thing  _ in Fillory.”

“Uh, definitely not in the books,” Quentin says, slightly lightheaded.  “But, I guess –– I mean, plenty of other stuff we’ve found isn’t in the books, although I wasn’t exactly expecting ––”

“Apparently it’s very taboo,” Margo adds from his other side.  She turns more towards Fray as she adds, nonchalant as anything, “But like I told Humbledrum, as long as it’s consensual and you’re into each other, I say go hogwild –– or bearwild or bullwild or what the hell else you feel like.”

It’s such a Margo thing to say that Quentin almost, but not quite, manages to stop thinking about the logistics of how a girl as tiny as Fray could fuck a  _ bear. _

Margo is clearly unaffected by such worries.  She turns to Eliot, ignoring Quentin on the stool between them, and continues, “He’s very concerned about getting your approval, honey.  I don’t think he really gets that you’re not Fray’s  _ real  _ dad, but either way, it’d mean a lot.”

Eliot’s face goes very confused for like, one second, but to his credit he pulls it back fast.  Eliot’s always been better at the scandalous side of Fillory than Quentin has, obviously.

“Well, in that case, I’ll say what I wish my father had said to me.”  Eliot pushes back his stool and stands, leans across the bar, and touches his thumb affectionately to Fray’s chin, all cooing affection in the way he sometimes gets with Quentin too.  “Darling, I’m  _ so  _ happy you’re dating a bear.”

Quentin’s mind is filled, instantly, with entirely new but somehow equally vivid images of a scrawny teenage Eliot with a big butch boyfriend, but that’s –– beside the point right now.  He shakes his head a little dizzily to try and wipe all that away, and finds himself distracted a moment later anyway by Fray’s face. She looks like she desperately doesn’t want to, but all at once, her expression has gone soft, her eyes so emotional as she looks up at Eliot that she might even be on the brink of tears.

“Thanks, dad,” she says.  Which ––

Yeah, okay, that hits Quentin right in the gut, too.  He surreptitiously wipes the corners of his eyes.  

Eliot would be a freaking amazing dad, Quentin thinks for the millionth time; whenever he chooses to do it, whoever he chooses to do it with, he’s just going to be  _ so  _ good.  It’s a shame that Fray has to realise that after they’ve all found out she’s not really Eliot’s daughter, but Quentin knows Eliot, and he knows that once Eliot decides to have someone in his little family, blood relation doesn’t matter at all.  He’s sure El will keep in touch with Fray. Will be some kind of fatherly presence in her life, no matter how little he’d claimed to want to at first.

And Fray seems to know it, too.  She raises one hand to rest over Eliot’s, where he’s still touching her face, and then something changes in her eyes.  The softness and emotion, so unfamiliar on her, give way to an expression Quentin’s seen her wear far more –– resolve.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you for coming, I actually have  _ nothing _ to say to you,” says Fray, as the Fairy Queen ambles through the door to the pub.

Hell of an opening line, Eliot thinks fondly, for someone you’re technically on the run from.  She may not be his daughter biologically but he thinks she somehow still inherited his attitude.  He slides an arm around her shoulder, tugging her into his side, while Margo leans across the bar and faces the Queen head on.

“I know what you want.  And I can't give it to you, so you may as well give up now.”

A fundamental fact about their little group is that they all have  _ very  _ different negotiation styles.  While Quentin would try and appeal to her emotionally, and Eliot would try and flatter or schmooze until he got what he wanted, Margo is faster than either of them, and leaps in with a snarky, “Yeah, we get it, you think humans will chop you up and snort your innards.”

Quentin quickly cuts in, like he’s trying to mitigate Margo’s  _ Margo-ness,  _ “But, uh, seriously, not all humans are like that.   _ We’re _ not like that.  And we’re working on protecting you from the ones who are –– well, Julia’s working on protecting you, but you get it.  If you’d just compromise with us ––”

The Queen seems unaffected by him entirely, folding her hands in front of herself and staring them all down.

“I told Julia about our key so you would have a chance to give up on this hopeless quest.  That was my compromise.”

“We aren’t questing, though,” Eliot quickly interjects, leaning further across the counter.  “We’re surrendering. We’re giving you everything you wanted all along –– a nice, quiet, moist as hell region of Fillory for your people to settle in.”  He pauses, and then adds, a little quicker, “And you give us the key.”

The Fairy Queen quirks her lips at him, almost a smile except there’s no happiness in it.

“Or,” she counters, “I walk away.  And when the Lorians, Floaters, and Western Hordes are done with Fillory, I can take it.  All of it.” She has never looked taller than now, as she looms over them and tells them, “Our lifespans dwarf even the dwarves.  We can wait for what we want.”

And usually, that would be an intimidating as hell statement.  But the only thing is.  _ Well.   _ Eliot glances to his right, at Quentin, fiddling with a strand of hair that’s fallen out of his ponytail and watching the Fairy Queen’s every move, and then at Margo, who really is grinning.

“Oh, but you can't, can you?” says Margo the Destroyer, first and truest of her name.  “You see, we happen to have found out that there are no fairy children in your realm. Turns out, you can’t reproduce in your own kingdom.  Soooo, that's a prob.”

“That's why you planted your eggs in the Northern Orchard, right?” Eliot checks.  “If you can’t breed in fairyland, then without Fillory, you go extinct.”

There’s silence.  It is, Eliot thinks, the first time he has ever seen the Fairy Queen without something to say.  It’s the first time he’s ever  _ really  _ felt like they held all the cards over her, even that time they kidnapped some of her eggs.  She’s been one step ahead of them this whole time, but mostly just because they never knew what her  _ motives  _ were.  Now, they finally do.  The picture is finally whole.  It may be a shitty picture, but it’s still better to know it.

His left arm is still wrapped around Fray’s shoulders, but his right is dangling loose at his side.  Eliot glances that way quickly, and then just –– nudges his hand over, just a little.

His fingers bump against Quentin’s.  He feels Quentin’s tiny little jolt, hears his little intake of breath, only just loud enough for Eliot to notice because they’re stood so close.

Feeling emboldened by their success and like this is the first really  _ royal negotiation  _ he’s gotten to do with both his favourite fellow monarchs, both his Bambi  _ and  _ his Q, Eliot links their pinky fingers together beneath the bar.  Q uentin’s eyebrows twist together in Eliot’s peripheral vision, but he doesn’t pull away.  And for a moment, Eliot forgets about fairies and keys and wars and uprisings and anything else he could possibly need to worry about.  All he can think about is Quentin. All he can feel is Quentin’s soft finger and the perfect heat where it presses against his own.

Then he reprimands himself for being a big gay sap, and drags himself reluctantly back to the moment, in this smelly animal pub with hay stuck to his elbow and the weight of the world on their shoulders.  The Fairy Queen is still silent.

At the lack of response, Margo snorts huffily and says, like she’s winning a war just by saying it, “Fine, ignore the problem.  You may live long as shit, but you’re losing fairies by the day, and your egg hole's only getting dustier.”

That, at least, seems to anger the Queen into speaking.  Margo’s never been known for her subtlety, but you can’t deny she gets results, Eliot thinks –– even if they’re often not the results you particularly  _ want. _

“You cannot promise me sanctuary when you have no claim on the land you propose to give.   _ You _ no longer speak for Fillory.  Tick Pickwick does.” Eliot tries to hold his determined posture, but he can’t help flickering a bit, shoulders deflating for a moment as he glances towards Margo.  “And he has no interest in a deal. So if you want my key, either come back with a crown, or come back with an army.”

 

* * *

 

“So, obviously, we need to regain your crowns,” Josh says, back on the Muntjac, as they regroup.

_ Obviously,  _ Eliot thinks, but manages to contain himself to just rolling his eyes rather than saying it aloud.

Josh has apparently spent the afternoon they were all gone cooking up a feast –– somehow, in the rudimentary cooking facilities of the boat –– and it all looks really fucking good.  He seems to have taken the reason Margo brought him along, to cook for them, entirely to heart. Maybe he’ll finally be happy about having a role in the group now, Eliot thinks, and isn’t going to risk that by snarking at him  _ too  _ much.

Surrounded by Josh’s delicious creations, Eliot makes up a hearty plate for Quentin, of all the plainest but also most nutritious and filling foods available, and shoves it at him to make sure he’ll eat.  After sharing a  _ look,  _ Quentin takes the food, and Eliot cheerfully sets about selecting a more exciting arrangement of snacks for himself.

“Except it ain’t that fucking simple, is it,” says Margo.  She stabs a taco shell with her fork so hard that it shatters on her plate, and looks for all the world like she wishes it was Tick Pickwick’s head.  “It’s a freaking three-way catch 22. We need magic to get our thrones back. We need the key to get back magic. And we need our thrones to get the key.”

“A total ouroboros of ass,” Eliot agrees, sampling one of Josh’s homemade salsas.

Eliot has sat on the Muntjac’s luxurious chaise longue with his legs stretched along it, taking up almost all of the space, but Quentin’s managed to wedge himself into the space at the edge, Eliot’s boots pressed against his thigh.  With one of his own legs tucked up so that he can balance his plate on his knee but still be twisted around himself in that was that he does, Quentin makes a little  _ umm _ ing noise, picking around the food on this plate.

“You guys negotiated with the Stone Queen and, uh, King Idri already, based on giving them magic.  That’s clearly something they want. Maybe if you told them you needed to regain your thrones in order to get magic back, they’d back your claims?  Help defeat Tick’s army and take back the castle?”

It’s not an unreasonable idea, but based on how reluctant Idri and the Stone Queen had been to negotiate in the first place, Eliot doesn’t necessarily think it’s got legs either.  He worries his lip between his teeth, glancing over at Quentin.

Q has his hair tied back in one of his little ponytails today –– and  _ fuck  _ how Eliot loves when he does that –– so he can’t hide behind his curtain of hair, but he does look a little bit like he’s trying to melt into the couch cushions.  It’s a stressful situation. Eliot gets it. None of them were ever trained for this and they’re making  _ very  _ real world fucking serious decisions at every turn.

Still.  As much as Quentin claims he’s a terrible king –– and maybe is, in  _ some  _ ways –– there’s no denying that he has a head for this sort of strategy.

“That might work,” Eliot agrees, eyes flicking to the ceiling as he thinks about it.  “It would certainly take some more negotiating, which I’m not sure  _ how  _ much of a position we’re in to do, but ––”

He’s cut off by Josh.  “Okay, as fun as all of that sounds, there is a part in that  _ take it by force  _ plan where we straight up kill a bunch of people, yeah?  Just thinking, what if we replaced  _ that  _ with, oh, you know, democracy?  Like we were going to do before magic got borked?”

Eliot rolls his eyes.  As nice as the idea sounds, he doesn’t think this is the time for  _ nice.   _ They’ve been freaking deposed by force and the whole universe’s magic depends on them undoing that.

“Fillory’s never had democracy,” Quentin says, sort of anxiously, from his corner.  He sets his plate down on the table in front of them, even though it looks like he hasn’t touched anything on it; Eliot frowns and wants to tell him to eat, but Quentin’s talking again before he has a chance to, gesturing wide with his hands and saying, “It’s not really authentic to their monarchal system, or, like, the whole history of infrastructure in all their surrounding lands, which have––”

“Dude, who cares if it’s  _ authentic,”  _ Josh says, and Quentin immediately shuts up.  “This place is fucked the fuck up! Kings are going around killing each other and starting wars every two seconds, and I’m just suggesting we try and like, keep the people alive, for starters.”

Quentin swallows; Eliot watches the bob of his adam’s apple and suddenly feels his own mouth going rather dry.

“Okay, point made,” Quentin concedes weakly.  “But you’d still have to like, figure out how to even spread the idea of democracy around Fillory first.  They wouldn’t even know what an election  _ was.” _

“And all of that is forgetting one teeny tiny thing, too,” Eliot points out.  He pushes his toes a little further into Quentin’s thighs but looks at Josh as he says, “As everyone is so fond of pointing out, we have no power now.  Tick's the only one who can call for an election, and he's got nothing to gain.”

But that is when the most delightfully cunning look in the world seeps onto his Bambi’s face, spreads molasses-slow with a sweet dark smile.  Oh, he  _ loves  _ it when she looks like that.  It’s usually how she looks right before crushing their opposing team at Welters, or coercing a hapless boy into a threesome; it’s encouraging to see it being used for diplomacy.

“Oh, he'll call for it, all right,” she says.  “Josh, grab a portal back to earth. I need you to go to Kinko's.”

Quentin and Eliot look at each other, and Eliot just shrugs.  He adores Margo, but not even he is privy to the inner workings of her mind.  He only knows that when she looks like  _ this  _ –– all determined behind the eyes, as she stands up with a flourish and heads over to her bag, rifling through it for something –– that it’s best to step back and let her work her entirely Margo-specific magic.

With her dealing with that, anyway, Eliot can deal with Quentin.  El swings his legs down from the chaise so he can lean forward and pick up Quentin’s discarded plate of food again, handing it back to him.

“Eat,” he says, while Quentin gives him a scrunched little look, half bitchy and half anxious.  “Trust me, whatever Margo’s coming up with next, you’re gonna need your strength.”

Quentin eats.

* * *

 

Only one day of poster designing and law researching and racking up points on Josh’s Kinko’s rewards card later, Josh appears back in the boat, panting and clutching a sheet of paper in his hand –– Eliot would almost feel bad about making him run go-between so much, except, well, it’s  _ Josh,  _ who’d been practically begging them to include him in some way.  Also, portal travel still makes Eliot queasy and he’s happy to pass off the job.

“Your plan worked,” Josh tells them, out of breath. “Tick already started putting up his own campaign flyers.”

“Let me see that,” Quentin says, immediately closing his book and hopping up from his perch across the room, coming to take the flyer out of Josh’s hands.  He scours it, reading every detail with his lips moving silently in concentration.

Eliot’s hearts thumps fondly, painfully.  He forces himself to look at Margo instead.  He adores her just as much, but it’s far less complicated and doesn’t make it feel like there’s a vice grip around his entire chest.

“Of course it worked,” Margo says to Josh, rolling her eyes.  “Giving people shit is easy, but taking it away is always almost impossible.  Ask anyone with a nasty STD.”

_ Well _ .  She always did have a way with words.

Although it just reminds Eliot, actually:  “Bambi, speaking of difficult conversations with a former lover, do you have a second?”

 

* * *

 

It’s not a conversation Eliot  _ wants  _ to have with Margo.  It’s not something he is relishing; it’s not even something he’s not been dreading.  He does know it’s awful, he does, and he does know Margo will hate it endlessly, because she lives entirely in her passions and rarely in her head.  Which is one of the things he loves most about her, usually, but it’s also led to a few things here and there such as –– them going to war with a whole other kingdom because she just declared it on the spot.  And such.

“Bambi, I know when we were first talking about introducing democracy in Fillory it was going to be both of us at the helm, but just for the sake of appearances during this election, I’ve been thinking we should –– probably keep it to just me.”

Margo, predictably, looks absolutely furious.  “What the fuck, Eliot? Why the fuck shouldn’t my name be on that ballot?”

Eliot reaches a hand out to stroke her arm, soothing as he possibly knows how, and says, “Because we are running for  _ king.” _

“After we win the fucking thing we can call the job whatever we want!”

“That’s my point exactly,” Eliot agrees, quickly, and emphasises, “ _ After  _ we win.  It’s just the winning itself I’m concerned about.  I mean, Margo, come on, it has been a struggle to bring this place into the twentieth century.   _ Twentieth,  _ not even twenty first, because when we got here, it was straight up Dark Ages.  I just don’t know if Fillory’s ready for a female king in their very first election.”

“Well, they’re never gonna be fucking ready if we don’t give them the option!” Margo fumes, one of her palms hitting against his chest.  Eliot strokes her arm some more even though being in close physical proximity seems like it’s likely to get him attacked at any second. 

“Listen, Fillory  _ is _ patriarchal, we can’t change that overnight.  We've got to put our best foot forward, and I'm sorry, but in this case, our foot should have a dick.”

Margo lets out a high-pitched noise in the back of her throat. “So, what, the men are just  _ better candidates?   _ What brilliant earth behaviors should we model next?  To outlaw abortion? Women don't want to work? Wage gaps?  Thigh gaps?”

And Eliot just –– sighs.  He gets it. He really gets it, and he gets why she hates it.

But he and Margo, close as they are, come from very different pasts, and very different worlds.  And in this case, Eliot thinks he knows what he’s talking about.

“Margo, I’m just saying.  That I know a lot about being the kind of person that a place isn’t ready for, in a very backwards land that doesn’t understand you.”  Margo’s hand goes limp against his chest all of a sudden, the fight out of her the moment she realises what he’s talking about. “So I know from experience that you don’t make progress by being  _ one hundred percent in-their-faces yourself  _ right out of the gate.  You might not even survive that way, and you’ll certainly never win.”

At least, Eliot never has.

“Okay, you fucker, if it’s important enough to go pulling out your tragic backstory on me then I guess I’ll go with it,” says Margo, which is the closest he’ll get to an actual acquiescence from her, Eliot knows.

He’s very grateful.  He tugs her stiff body into his chest for a hug, cooing into her hair until she huffs, and hugs him back.

 

* * *

 

Quentin sits cross-legged on the low table in the centre of the Muntjac’s cabin, holding a bowl of cereal close under his chin with one hand and spooning it into his mouth with the other.

Life in Fillory has gotten a lot better with Josh going on regular grocery trips back to earth, Quentin has to admit.  As a kid, he’d fantasised in a great Romantic sense about the endless Fillorian feasts in the books, all of them sounding so elaborate and royally exotic.  But the truth was, when you lived there, it was just a lot of grain, pickled vegetables, and heavily salted meats arranged in different ways. Young Quentin had completely underestimated the amount he’d miss such luxuries as Captain Crunch.

This is really the best of both worlds, though –– or as much as that can be said when both worlds were so incredibly messed up at the moment –– and Quentin keeps at his cereal as he stares across the room, where Margo and Josh are both gathered as well, watching Eliot read Tick Pickwick’s first campaign flyer.

“ _ My fellow Fillorians _ ,” Eliot recites, in his soft low voice, while Quentin tries not to think about how he could listen to Eliot read for hours.  “ _ I hereby set forth my policy to restore economic and societal growth to a reunified Fillory –– _ Blah, blah, blah, blah.  So uninspiring. Does he really think he can win by boring them to death?”

“That’s kind of just politics, though, isn’t it?” Q points out, through a mouthful of cereal.  He’s sat a little further away than the rest of them but Eliot still immediately looks over at the sound of his voice.  “I mean, you have to tell people your campaign platforms, or they won’t know why to vote for you.”

“You only think that because you’re unimaginative,” Eliot says soothingly.  Quentin should maybe be insulted, but just sort of shrugs. Meanwhile, Eliot claps his hands together and announces, “No, you tell people to vote for you by promising them  _ exciting  _ things.  Someone draft up a new flyer: I hereby declare all native Fillorians shall receive ten free sacks of grain every year.”

“That’s a lot of grain,” Quentin observes, rather redundantly.  “That’s generous.”

“Such is my  _ noblesse oblige,  _ dear Q, _ ”  _ Eliot says, with his nose high in the air and an elaborately nonchalant twist of his hand in the air.

Sexy.  Eliot spouting obscure French phrases and wafting about like entitled royalty is just so fucking –– stupid, and _ so  _ sexy.  A tiny fire lights in the cold pit of Q’s stomach and then spreads downwards immediately; Quentin shovels a huge spoonful of cereal into his mouth and tries not to choke on it as his cheeks turn pink. 

“Generosity’s all very well and good,” says Margo, simperingly tight in the way she speaks when she’s about to bite your head off.  Stupid sexy Eliot clearly isn’t havin the safe effect on her as he is on Quentin. “But how exactly are we supposed to grow that much grain, even  _ with _ magic? You're making a promise you can't keep.”

“Bambi, what’s the first rule of politics on earth?” Eliot asks, before reaching forward to pat her hand and answering his own question:  “All you have to do is say it. It doesn't have to be true.”

Which.  Quentin doesn’t necessarily think that’s  _ moral,  _ but he’s got a point.

 

* * *

 

Tick’s next flier reads, in tight and nearly illegible cursive, _ I hereby declare, under my administration, low-interest loans for all new infrastructure. _

“Easy,” says Eliot.   _ No _ -interest loans.”  He pauses, looks at the flickering candle in the corner as the muffled swearing of Josh trying to cook over the top of a wood-burner in the next room rings out, and adds, “ _ And _ we're going to build Fillory's first Power plants.”

And, next –– “Will Tick's granular policies keep you warm at night? No, you know what will? Extending the Fillorian summer.”

And, after that –– “Free healthcare for all!  If America won’t fucking do it, at least Fillory can.” 

And –– “Champagne fountains in every village!  I’ll finally get that  _ champagne king  _ nickname off the ground if it kills me.” 

And –– ”Monthly feasts at the palace,” and, “Long weekends every weekend,” and –– ”Boat parties!”

“Boat parties?” Quentin can’t help but check, even as he’s poised to scribble it down in the little  _ campaign notebook  _ he’s keeping.  “Like, at a certain time of the year, or on special occasions, or just for people who live by the docks, or what?”

Eliot simply shrugs, and takes another sip of the flute of champagne he’s scrounged up from seemingly nowhere at all.  Quentin wouldn’t be surprised if Eliot  _ could  _ just make champagne appear in his hands at will, even in a world without magic.

“Just, boat parties,” Eliot repeats, with no clarification at all.  Quentin rolls his eyes, but writes it down. Whatever gets the votes.

It’s not long, for an election cycle, that’s for sure, but before long it seems like it’d be almost  _ impossible  _ for Eliot not to win.  Fillorian loyalty may lay on Tick’s side, but not many people would actually stick to such an abstract conviction in the face of everything Eliot’s promising.  Regardless of whether it’s true or not –– and maybe Quentin should feel bad about that, considering the Fillorian people have always seemed rather gullible and naive and they’re completely playing that for their own gain right now, but, well.

This will all be worth it in the long run when it enables them to get magic back.  So he’s choosing to look on the bright side, as Eliot pens out a new flier which literally promises blowjobs from his nonexistent royal concubines in exchange for votes.

Quentin has a brief flash of hysteria when he wonders if  _ he  _ technically counts as Eliot’s royal concubine, given that Eliot is-or-was High King, and is married to someone else but regularly fucking Quentin.

_ Well,  _ Quentin thinks, not sure if he likes the idea in some sort of elaborate roleplay scenario at least or is just on the brink of going insane.  So long as Eliot’s not expecting  _ Quentin  _ to give out all these promised blowjobs to the local townspeople.

“There’s no way you’re not going to win,” Quentin says, voice low in the space of the evening the next night.  Darkness has fallen over the cabin and both Margo and Josh have retreated to their beds, but Eliot’s still awake, so Quentin is too.  He folds himself into the space beside Eliot on the chaise lounge, tucking his knees up and angling himself towards El, who’s clutching one of his own campaign flyers and staring down at it in the flickering candlelight.  “I mean, you’re polling number one by miles in all the taverns Josh has been going to, so.”

“Mmm,” Eliot agrees, though his eyes don’t move from the flyer.  “Well, I’ve always said drunks are the best representation of the population, so you’re probably right.”

“I’m definitely right,” Quentin says, with more surety than he usually has about anything.

He hesitates for a moment, angled close to El but not quite touching him, before raising a hand.  Eliot’s in his king’s finery today, and as much as he looks like a beautiful picture, Quentin always finds it harder to touch him like this –– like it’s not  _ Quentin’s _ Eliot sat there.  Maybe that’s because Quentin feels horribly inferior in his days-old hoodie and jeans, or maybe it’s because the Eliot who Quentin fell in love with was the Eliot at the mosaic, who wore his dandy earth clothes every day.

Bridging the gap between those two things shouldn’t be this difficult, but it feels like it is.  Quentin drops his hand again restlessly before he can reach out and touch Eliot’s knee the way he wants to.  A little cloud of frustration puffs inside his chest, but he doesn’t know what to do.

“Why do you still look worried, then?” Quentin ventures to ask in a hushed voice, as he leans a little further back with his head against the top of the couch.  Like this he can survey Eliot’s profile in the dark room, flickering candlelight beside them projecting complex things into his eyes. Quentin feels achey inside.

“Not worried,” Eliot says, his fingers running slow up and down the sides of the flyer he’s holding.  “Or. I don’t know. I mean, I know this is something I have to do. If I don’t win the crown back, we can’t get the key from the fairies, and we can’t bring back magic.  That’s the most important thing, here.”

Quentin, who has been through years of therapy and picked up a few things from it even if he was remarkably self-involved about the whole process, reminds Eliot, “Yeah, but you’re still allowed to be worried about things that aren’t the most important thing.”

“Maybe.”  Silence, for a minute.  Quentin knows how to wait these things out with Eliot, though.  If you accept any of his first answers as truth, you never get anywhere with him, and if you try to push he just runs away.  But if you give him space to stew, he gets there on his own eventually –– “I guess it’s just ––”  _ Victory,  _ thinks Quentin.  “I guess it’s just that last time I became king, I didn’t have any choice about it, either.  And don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good parts. But once we turn magic back on, and I’ll still be High King, all the old things are gonna come back, right?  I won’t be able to leave Fillory ever again. I’ll probably be back in that bullshit fidelity spell with Fen. It’ll all just be –– back to how it was before.”

“And you weren’t happy, how it was before,” Quentin hazards a guess, except it’s not really a guess, because he knows.  Eliot finally looks up, quirks his lips almost like a smile, but his eyes are all sadness.

Quentin desperately wants to reach for him, but can’t.

“I love Fillory.  But I also really, really love earth.  And seeing all my friends. And sex with –– sex where I don’t just have to lay back and think of Fillory.  And not being responsible for the fate of a nation, too. It’s just a lot to sort through.”

“It is,” Quentin agrees, aching.  He hasn’t even thought, before now, about how Eliot’s marriage might go back to its original conditions when magic comes back on.  He’s probably a terrible person for how that sends even more of a shot of panic through him than the thought of Eliot being unhappy living in Fillory does.  He hasn’t thought, really, until now, about how just –– how  _ much  _ is going to change again, if they pull all this off.  Quentin swallows, looks at Eliot’s eyes, and says, “We’ll figure it out, though.  I promise, okay? We don’t even know if all that  _ will  _ come back now that Ember and Umber are dead.  It won’t be like before. You might be able to be High King and still come and go as you please, or still –– or still do what you want.”

_ Do me,  _ Quentin means by that, but can’t say it.

“Maybe,” Eliot agrees.  But he doesn’t sound convinced.  “I suppose, like most maddening things in life, we’ll have to just wait and see.”

“Yeah,” says Quentin.  He swallows. The quiet of the ship’s cabin around them suddenly feels oppressive; the dim light suddenly weighs heavy around him.  He feels claustrophobic and strange. He feels like everything he wants in life never ends up being like it’s supposed to. He feels like all the things he’s ever loved most have only ended up ruining him.  It’s happened with Fillory, and he’s on a ticking clock until it happens with Eliot, too. He can feel it in his bones, now. How they’re barrelling towards a crash, if all of this comes true. How he’s not sure how many broken pieces he’ll be able to put together afterwards.

“I’m going to be up a while longer,” Eliot says, voice soft, a little later, oblivious to the way Quentin feels like his entire body is being squeezed tight by the world around him.  “You should head to bed, if you want.”

If the world were perfect, Quentin thinks, he’d say  _ nah _ ,  _ I’m not tired _ , and he’d stay out here with Eliot, and get in his lap and make out with him on the couch until he felt better, and they’d talk it all out, and come up with plans sure to make everything okay.

The world’s not perfect, and Quentin still doesn’t know how to cross the space between them right now.  So he goes to bed. Alone.

 

* * *

 

They pick Rafe up at the official palace docks the morning after the election, and he says, “I am here to deliver the official election results.”

“Yes, Rafe, that’s why we invited you onto our fugitive ship,” Margo says, rolling her eyes and snapping her fingers.  “Come on, out with it.”

“Okay.” Quentin watches as Rafe swallows, throat bobbing.  “Eliot has lost.”

“Oh.  _ Oh. _ ”

“What the fuck _ ––” _

But before any of them can have time to process the utter panic that should set in with that plot twist, Rafe continues, “Uh, Tick has also lost.”

Eliot blinks several times.  “Pardon?”

“Okay, how the fuck does that work because ––” Quentin begins, his entire brain screeching at him, but he’s cut off by Rafe once again.

“Our new High King is... Margo.”

And that shuts everyone right the fuck up.

Quentin can’t actually process it, for a moment.  It’s like a lot of things about Fillory –– he’s so used to the way things were in the books that he always feels like he must know  _ exactly  _ how this world works.  It was his main comfort in life for a long time, a world where he understood all the rules.  And it’s never been like that since they found the real Fillory, not at all, and things are changing here every day anyway, but Quentin still tries to cling to that logic like his desperate security blanket, even though it never works out.  

“But I wa –– I wasn't even on the ballot,” says Margo.

Thinking about it, Quentin wonders if this might be one of the only times he’s ever seen Margo look  _ surprised.   _ It is absolutely for sure the first time he’s ever heard her stutter.

He knows she loved the books just as much as he did as a kid, and even though she’s been a thousand times better at embracing the real Fillory than he has, she maybe still holds onto the way things worked in the books sometimes too, just like Quentin.

“You won as a write-in,” Rafe explains, clutching the scroll between his hands.

“Um, hi, yeah,” Quentin interrupts quickly.  “Literally almost every single person Josh talked to said they were gonna vote for Eliot.  So who exactly wrote her in?”

“Oh, that would be the talking animals.”  While Quentin blinks and tries to process  _ that,  _ Rafe turns politely to Margo.  “Considering there's never been an election or census before, we had no idea there were only 50,000 humans in Fillory, and upwards of a million talking animals.  And it seems you were the only human on the campaign trail who stopped to listen to their concerns.”

Quentin doesn’t remember that.  Honestly, they’ve barely left the boat the whole time, considering they’re still technically wanted for execution –– none of them were really on the  _ campaign trail.   _ But recognition lights up in Margo’s eyes at it, at least.

“You mean that drunk bear?” she asks.

“Oh, holy shit,” says Quentin.

“Humbledrum is a highly respected member of the community,” Rafe says, a little defensive.  “It appears he spread word to many of the others of how favourable he found your opinions, during your conversation.  You see, there are certain taboo subjects you broached with him.”

“ _ Bestiality?”  _ Margo asks.

Of course.  Quentin feels mildly hysterical.  He hasn’t even looked at Eliot yet, or thought about what this means for their quest at large, he’s just –– of  _ course  _ a vote in Fillory would come down to bestiality, of fucking course it would.

Quentin feels a little dizzy.  He sits down on the nearest chair and blinks several times.

“The talking animals believe that if they were allowed to inter-marry with humans, then humans will finally see them as equals.  None of us were brave enough to speak out in support of the cause, until you.”

Quentin misses the  _ us  _ in that statement, still just thinking  _ bestiality???  _ In his head, but clearly Margo doesn’t.  Shrewedly, she says, “You really love that sloth, huh.”

And Rafe just smiles.

“On that topic, and on behalf of Abigail, let me be the first to swear loyalty to the new administration.”

The new administration.  The  _ Margo  _ administration.  It’s not that Quentin doesn’t think she’s a badass or a good ruler, but holy fuck.

It’s the sort of thing that –– the sort of thing that if you’d told teenage Quentin about all of this, or even the Quentin of a year ago, he probably would have been really fucking bitter.  The same way it hurt a little to realise the first time around that he wasn’t the destined king of Fillory. He would have thought,  _ why couldn’t  _ I  _ have been the one who talked to Humbledrum.  I like the talking animals! Why couldn’t they have written me in instead!   _ But the Quentin he is now –– the version who is both slightly more mature and endlessly more disillusioned –– barely wants that at all.  Actually, any twinge of upset he feels at all for this news is more about ––

“Eliot.”  The second Margo says his name, Quentin’s head snaps to look at El, too.  He looks vaguely shellshocked, lips parted and eyes held still on Rafe, and Margo sounds worried, so Quentin feels like he should be, too.  “El, I’m so sorry.”

It’s like her words snap Eliot out of it in a second, though.  He turns to Margo, looming a mile over her at his full height, eyes intense and dark ––

And drops to his knees.

“High King Margo,” El says, and bursts out into a smile.  He grabs one of Margo’s hands between his and kisses it, a long hard kiss that makes Margo’s cheeks flush with pleasure.  She laughs delightedly while Quentin lets out a breath of relief. “Never was there a better option, Bambi, not ever. Long may you reign.”

 

* * *

 

When they get back to Whitespire that night, exhausted and giddy and a little drunk off all the celebratory wine they drank during the journey, Tick is waiting for them.  He’s apparently expecting to be executed right off the bat, but Eliot, sighing over how pathetic he looks, tells him he’s gonna be on the royal council instead. He’s still on the bitch-list –– Eliot makes a point of telling him  _ that,  _ for sure –– and will be under a hell of a lot of surveillance in case he gets the itch for an uprising again, but it’s unfortunately true that nobody knows Fillory better than him.

Next is the meeting with the Fairy Queen, who they summon immediately.

“Citizenship for every Fairy, full protection of the law, and a seat in the government,” Margo tells her, standing taller than her height and sounding every inch a king.  Eliot hangs back, behind her shoulder, playing back-up to her like he knows he was always really destined to do. This might be Margo’s first half hour as a High King, but she already wears it better than he ever did.

“But, uh, we need the key,” Quentin pipes up, from the other corner of the room.  Lovely, predictable Quentin.

“And you shall have it,” the Fairy Queen decrees, “Once the last of the fairies have been moved to our new home.”  Then she pauses, steps forwards to Margo, says, “I always saw something in you. Now, perhaps, you will see it too.”

She raises her hand to Margo’s face, and it’s all done all at once.

“You gave me ––” Margo whispers, and Eliot watches as, with shaking hands, she takes off her eyepatch.

And underneath, she’s healed.  Her new eye stares around with the black-blown pupil of a fairy, but Margo gasps and swallows and looks around, and looks like she’s never been given anything so beautiful.

Wow, thinks Eliot, feeling rather fucking dizzy himself.  What a day this has been for Bambi.

 

* * *

 

Because it really, truly has been a  _ long  _ day, they retreat to bed as soon as the Fairy Queen has left.  Eliot gives Margo a lush kiss goodnight at her door, and reminds her once again how truly proud he is of her, before sending her into her room and heading off to his own.

Quentin, of course, is at his heels the whole time, because he’s a wonderful puppy.  Also probably because he wants to  _ talk. _

Eliot doesn’t know if he wants to talk, much.  He knows he’s happy for Margo, genuinely. He tried to like being High King and he knows parts of it were amazing, and he really does owe Fillory a lot, but the job had also always been forced on him, and had come with a whole lot of bullshit he didn’t need.  So truly, Eliot is happy for a reprieve from the job.

He also knows Bambi will be amazing at it, more decisive and committed and inherently easy to follow than he could ever have been, and having one of them on the throne so they could negotiate with the fairies was really the important part.  He’ll be a regular king, and lounge around drinking wine and enjoying the hand-crafted expensive wardrobe that came with the job. And he’ll support Bambi, because even if it had been something Eliot desperately wanted for himself, he’s always been her number one fan.  It’s all very much okay.

Quentin, though, seems worried about him, no matter how many times Eliot says he’s fine with it.  As they shut themselves up in Eliot’s old rooms — Quentin leaning back against the door to make sure it’s locked, Eliot picking around the space to make sure none of his things were disturbed during their temporary overthrowal — Quentin keeps giving him big eyed glances, all beseeching and emotional.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, for what must be the tenth time, as Eliot pulls back the sheets on the bed.  “Because I know you’re really happy for Margo, but it’s okay to be happy for her and sad for yourself at the same time, and you could tell  _ me _ if you don’t want to tell her —“

“Quentin,” Eliot says, fondly resisting the urge to roll his eyes.  “I’m really, truly okay. I’m still a king, according to Margo, just not _High_ King anymore.  Honestly that was always more of an uncomfortably close-to-accurate title than anything else.”

“Well, Drunk King doesn’t have quite the same ring to it,” Quentin observes, snarky although he still looks a little concerned behind the eyes.  He hasn’t moved away from the door yet, leaning back into the wood with his palms pressed flat against it. Eliot crosses the room back to him and places his hands on the door too, either side of Quentin’s head, bracketing him there with a smile.

“It’s better this way,” Eliot says, with surety, as Quentin tilts his chin up to meet his eyes.  “Now I can save all my illusions of absolute power for the bedroom, where they belong.”

As he intended, that makes the concern behind Quentin’s eyes finally drop into something else, something hot and needy.  Eliot grins.

“Got a lot of dictator fantasies, have you?” Q replies, clearly trying to play it cool, and not at all managing.  Eliot strokes a finger down the side of his neck and watches him shiver.

“Not particularly, but I’m sure you have a long of Fillorian King fantasies we’ve just not yet had time to explore.  Teenage Quentin definitely jerked off thinking about  _ kneeling _ for his King, didn’t he?  Come on, tell me I’m right.”

“I did not!” Quentin insists, but his cheeks are pink.  “God, Eliot, they were kids’ books.”

“Yes, but I’m sure your authority kink didn’t come out of nowhere.”  Quentin is half-grinning and trying really hard not to, now. Eliot laughs and presses a little closer to him, backing Quentin into the hard surface of the door.  “Come on. I still have my crown on for now. And since nobody else is going to be kneeling for me in deference anymore, Quentin, do you want to pick up the slack?”

“You’re so ridiculous,” Q says, but it comes out hot and breathy and he spreads his legs to let Eliot press up against him, so, yeah, Eliot’s pretty sure he’s going to get a blowjob out of this. 

They kiss a while longer, so long Eliot loses track of time and loses track of the ache of tiredness in his body, too.  It’s almost like a sort of meditation, kissing Quentin –– it makes him slow down, even when the kissing is fast and hot, and  _ breathe,  _ when he can, and let go of all the strange tension of the day.  It makes his body go loose and relaxed and his worries fall right out of his mind.  It makes  _ everything  _ fall right out of his mind.

Although being pressed up against the door does have its difficulties.

“You’re too short for this,” Eliot complains, as he attempts to haul Quentin up with an arm around his waist to press their lips together again.  As they pull back, Quentin leaning up on his tiptoes so he can wrap his hands around the back of Eliot’s neck, Eliot adds, “One day I’m going to put you in high heels.”

“I would break my neck in  _ two  _ seconds of wearing high heels, Eliot,” Quentin says, rolling his eyes, and shoves Eliot back into the room instead, keeps going until the backs of Eliot’s knees hit the bed and he sits down.  “How about I sit in your lap and you just shut up, instead?”

“That works too,” El agrees, and then kisses him for long enough to forget the entire concept of height anyway.

It’s a good night.  It’s a really good fucking night.  With Quentin, like this –– Eliot can forget about the whole world.

It’s only the  _ afterwards  _ he has to worry about.  The fact that now, they have all seven keys.  They have everything they need. And that means they’re probably about to have to do the most dangerous thing they’ve ever done in their lives.

It’s terrifying.  It’s probably going to go horribly wrong.  And there’s nothing Eliot can do about it.

So he just fucks Quentin for hours, and doesn’t let himself think.  If the real world is about to catch up with them, Eliot doesn’t want to know about it.  He wants to be right here, lost in Quentin’s tight body and hot breaths and giddy words, and  _ nowhere  _ else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long live high king margo !! really hope you enjoyed the chapter guys <3 please leave a comment if you did, i love hearing all your thoughts !!
> 
> the earth arc of this episode will be up in a week or two, and then we'll be hitting the finale :O
> 
> as always you can find me at [disasterbiquentin](https://disasterbiquentin.tumblr.com) on tumblr :D


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